


Intro, Begin

by Iben



Series: Royal AU [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Arranged Marriage, M/M, Modern Royalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:02:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 56,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22804528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iben/pseuds/Iben
Summary: There were no remaining negotiations or discussions to be had. The time for doubt and regret had passed, if there ever really was one. There was only what was best for Alderaan and my duties as Prince. Sentiment was for children.But what if he couldn't stand me? What if I couldn't stand him? What if, what if, what if.I turned away from the mirror and headed towards the door. I knew what I had to do and I was going to do it.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Royal AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1639414
Comments: 42
Kudos: 27





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A reader kindly pointed out that the setting can be a bit confusing, so to make things clearer: this story takes place here on earth, in our time. The various places with names from Star Wars canon are nations on a continent that I've made up. Feel free to decide for yourself exactly where on our earth this continent is located :)

**Prologue**

_Right now, on a continent on our planet…_

The Republic is on the verge of being torn apart, mired by infighting and conflicts between its member states. Unable to reach consensus, the continent is vulnerable to threats both internal and external. 

One of those threats is the First Order, a terrorist organization that seeks to seize power by any means necessary. 

Leia Organa, Queen of Alderaan and Naboo, is working to bring unity to the continent. Alliances need to be formed in order to restore the Senate's decision-making capacity and prevent an impending civil war. 

Her first step towards stability is to align Alderaan and Naboo with another state in the Republic, by means of marriage between her son, the Prince of Alderaan, and a son of Arkanis.

**Chapter 1**

_Ben_

A blood-red tie. A blood-red tie? No. I pulled it off and dropped it on a chair. I stalked back to the closet and picked out a gray one instead. When I returned, D'Acy had picked up the red one and neatly folded it.

I tied the new tie around my neck, then turned down my shirt-collar once more. My mother had explicitly forbidden me from wearing black, so the suit I wore was charcoal gray. A three-piece. Bespoke, of course.

"You look very nice, Sir," D'Acy said and smiled.

I couldn't quite manage a smile in return. Nerves. If I could have carved out my stomach and left the coiling, fluttering thing in my apartment, I would have.

"Do you have my cigarettes?" I asked.

"Yes, right here."

She took a packet of Shentos from her pocket to show me. I could have had them on me, I had pockets too, but allowing D'Acy to keep them was an attempt to limit the number I smoked during a day.

All of a sudden I felt boxed in, aware of being watched, even though the room was spacious and D'Acy and I were the only ones there.

"Thank you," I said. "That'll be all. I'll be out in a few minutes."

"Very good, Sir."

She left and silently closed the door behind her.

I looked at my reflection in the full-length mirror and straightened my cuffs. It was a nice suit. My gaze slid to my face above the crispy white collar. My hair had gotten longer again and my mother had suggested I'd cut it, but I had said no. Subjecting people to my protruding ears, on top of everything else, seemed unnecessary. 

I took a deep breath, trying to quench the uneasiness crawling around in the pit of my stomach like a swarm of unwelcome ants. 

There were no remaining negotiations or discussions to be had. The time for doubt and regret had passed, if there ever really was one. There was only what was best for Alderaan and my duties as Prince. Sentiment was for children.

But what if he couldn't stand me? What if I couldn't stand him? What if, what if, what if. 

I turned away from the mirror and headed towards the door. I knew what I had to do and I was going to do it.

**

_When I was at university I did a year abroad, in the U.S. I told a friend there, a classmate, that I was expected to marry for political reasons. He laughed at first; he didn’t believe me. Then he stopped laughing. He told me that was insane. Medieval was a word he used._

_And he had a point. The Republic, consisting as it did of many small nations that had been ruled by the same families for centuries, was old-fashioned. Or maybe we were just more honest. Money, political influence, stability and social expectations played a part all over the world._

_Still, most people, in The Republic as well as elsewhere, married for love. Love. That mysterious, desperate force. A need that clung to your bones and skin in the dead of night, twisting and tormenting. A yearning sprung from dust and nothing, impossible to shake._

**

The signing of the accords was to take place in Queen Katherine’s Hall. It was located in one of the older parts of the palace and it showed. The frescoed ceiling, the gold stucco and baroque furniture was an assault on the eyes. I had no idea why my mother had chosen this room, after all we had no shortage of rooms to choose from.

There were lots of people waiting - the ministers on the royal council, a few generals and advisors, and of course the Arkanis delegation. Most of the gathered people looked solemn, but a few were smiling. I supposed they had reason to be happy; many of them had worked on these accords for a long time, mapping out the details and ironing out the wrinkles, and now all their hard labour would come to fruition. 

I didn’t know where to look. I’d stood in front of crowds plenty of times, but this felt different. A conjunction of that which was public and that which was so very private, or at least should have been allowed to be. 

My gaze was involuntarily drawn to one particular person. Armitage Hux. I had met him once before, at a formal function, at which he had bowed to me and said ‘Your Royal Highness’. I had shook his hand. That was all. Not even a few minutes of smalltalk. 

He was just a couple of years older than I, but whatever he’d done during his thirty-three years on this earth it was not partying in Scarif or going clubbing in Canto Bight, because I had never run into him. 

He looked back at me and I quickly turned my gaze away, then regretted doing so, but it was too late. I felt too warm in my suit. 

He was wearing the dark uniform of the Arkanis Army. He was a general, I knew that much. His father was head of state and his title was Grand General, rather than President. 

My mother took a step forward. Please, I prayed to a God I didn’t believe in, make it a short speech. 

As Mom talked, I made myself look out at the gathering and accidentally met Carise’s gaze. She had come with the Arkanis delegation. Her eyes were shooting daggers at me. 

Was I sorry? I couldn’t really say that I was. 

All of this, the alliance, my betrothal, was really supposed to happen a few years ago. The ball had already been set in motion when I finally broke down and told my parents that I was gay. And Mom pulled the plug on the whole thing. I didn’t actually expect her to do that. 

A while later she created headlines all over the Republic, and beyond, when she made it clear that Alderaan was interested in forming an alliance, by marriage between her son and a man from another nation. She didn’t shout it from the rooftops or send out an email to the entire Republic, but she didn’t need to. It was by its very nature a thing that could not remain secret. 

And thus the entire world knew I was gay. I was fairly certain no one had been outed on such a scale before. I knew it was going to happen of course. We had talked about it. And yes, I was grateful. She took a huge risk, this was unprecedented, and our shot at finding an ally worth a damn decreased drastically. 

It wasn't just about homophobia, it was simple math. I actually knew for a fact that there were nations where they had searched high and low for an eligible, homosexual man in their ranks. It was pure luck that Arkanis, the nation we were in fact most interested in, turned out to still be an option. 

“And so,” my mother concluded, “by signing this document, we not only become partners in political matters, we become family as well.”

She smiled at the Grand General, Brendol Hux, and he smiled back. He was an overweight man and there was something off-putting, unhealthy about him that had nothing to do with his size. 

I shot another glance at Armitage. Persistently not looking at him was as glaringly obvious as ogling him. His face was unreadable. Maybe he looked a bit stiff? As if perhaps he found this as awkward as I did. Fuck, I was sweating. 

My mother picked up the pen sitting next to the tome on the desk in front of us. She was so small she barely had to lean down at all as she wrote her name at the bottom of the last page. She put the pen down and Grand General Hux stepped forward. After he had signed he handed the pen to Armitage. 

Armitage bent over the document for a few seconds and then it was my turn. A tinge of nausea rolled through my stomach, but I didn’t hesitate as I stepped up to the desk and picked up the pen. Armitage’s signature was, I noticed, legible and very ordinary. 

This agreement held the future of our nations, not just for the next ten or twenty years, but even longer. It was the foundation for a forever. It even detailed what titles and authority would be bestowed upon any children that Armitage and I might have. 

Again, the public and the private inextricably mixed. In a few months we would be married and we had to make that work, somehow. 

I signed my name on the last, empty dotted line. Unlike my mother, who signed ‘Leia XIV’, I wrote my full name. I could have written ‘Prince Ben’, it would have been just as correct and legally binding, but I didn’t. And then I wished I had, but I wasn’t sure why. 

I set the pen down next to the accords and took a step back, trying to hide that I felt a little lightheaded. 

Mom and Grand General Hux shook hands and the court photographer snapped a few pictures. I stood next to Mom, and Armitage was by his father’s side. All of this was scripted. It had been decided that Armitage and I would not shake hands, because it would shatter the illusion that this was something more than a simple business transaction, an illusion that no one in this room even believed anyway. But I shook hands with Brendol Hux and Armitage shook with my mother. 

Then Grand General Hux shook with my father too. Dad had declined any royal titles when he married my mother. He had a military rank, by which he was referred to, but he took as little part in the affairs of the court as he possibly could. 

The audience who had borne witness to this historic event began to trickle out of the room. I turned to D’Acy who stood by the wall nearby. She had worked for me for years, so she knew what I wanted. She handed me the cigarettes and I slipped them into my pocket.

“The photo shoot is in forty minutes,” she said. 

“I have time.”

I turned my head and saw Armitage looking at me. His gaze slid, ever so briefly, to the pocket where I had put the cigarettes. Huh.

“Wanna grab a smoke?” I asked.

“Ah. Yes, certainly.”

He had a distinctly posh, Arkanis accent.

I jerked my chin in the direction of the door. It was forty minutes until the next item on the agenda, but even so it felt vaguely like sneaking off. I didn’t turn to see if my parents, or his father, were watching, but I felt watched and I resented that feeling. 

The palace had been added on to multiple times over the centuries. As a result it was a virtual labyrinth of corridors, staircases and rooms of various sizes, the different wings reflecting the architecture, and the taste of the monarch, of the time. But I had grown up here. I had played here as a child and explored every nook and cranny. I remembered my visceral disappointment when my nanny found me, hiding in a small, hidden room I was certain I alone knew about.

I led the way down the corridor to a door disguised to look as part of the wall and pushed it open. On the other side was a spiral staircase leading down to the first floor. From there, through another hidden door, it was just a few steps down another corridor and then we were outside.

Due to the massive, sprawling layout of the palace there were several courtyards where you could nip out for a smoke. This one was a small, stone-paved square with a fountain in the middle, surrounded by ivy-covered arches and overflowing flowerbeds. Some former king had had it built for his wife, because she was homesick, or maybe because she was barren? Either way she was sad. My mother’s P.A. Charles Threepio could probably recite the whole story by heart. 

I took out two cigarettes and handed one of them, and the lighter, to Armitage.

“Thank you,” he said. 

He was just a few inches shorter than I, but very slim. His hair was red, neatly cut, and he was pale, the way redheaded people had a tendency to be. 

He lit his cigarette, then handed the lighter back to me.

“I’m glad you smoke,” I said as I lit up.

He smiled a little. 

The nicotine felt like a balm on my frayed nerves. Judging by how greedily Armitage was inhaling his own poison, maybe he felt the same. 

My comment about him being a smoker had been mostly in jest, but there was some truth to it. There were no accords denoting how to deal with this. As of a few minutes ago we were engaged to be married and I knew close to nothing about him. We were going to spend the rest of our lives together, so we had to find some common ground and even the smallest thing might help. I was grateful for any help I could get. 

“Ever thought of quitting?” I asked. 

He glanced at me. 

“No.”

That surprised me a little. I’d thought about quitting a million times, but I didn’t seem to have the strength to do it. I’d tried, with disastrous results. Everyone around me breathed a sigh of relief when I started again. 

It was quiet for a moment and I tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t sound forced and trite, but it was as if there were only two extremes to choose from - either the enormousness of what we had just done, of what it meant, which I wasn’t sure I had the words for anyway, or meaningless chatter, one degree away from talking about the weather. 

I sucked smoke into my lungs with a deep breath and stared at the fountain. 

Armitage was handsome, there was no denying that. At some point in the future I was going to kiss him. I was probably going to sleep with him. That’s what married people did. Unmarried people too for that matter, but knowing it like this, beforehand, albeit not with absolute certainty, felt strange. I wondered what he thought about me.

Something that had been on my mind for a while resurfaced in my head. 

“Look,” I said. “I want to get this out of the way, now, before there are any… misunderstandings. Are you involved with anyone?”

He looked at me. 

“No. Are you?”

“No.”

I’d had a boyfriend, but that was in the past. It had been a short relationship, not very serious, but it was nice and it was special to me because he was the only boyfriend I’d ever had. I’d had hook-ups, mostly in faraway, backwaters places like Tatooine and Jakku, where I wouldn’t be recognized. And I’d had a girlfriend, Carise, a sort of on-again, off-again thing. A quasi-girlfriend. Actually, I wasn’t sure what we’d been exactly. 

If I hadn’t come out, or if my mother had decided she couldn’t take my sexuality into consideration, I would have stood here with Carise instead. Or actually I wouldn’t, because she didn’t smoke. 

Did Armitage know about her? They were both from Arkanis and her family was one of the most influential families there. He probably knew, but at least he now also knew that I was gay.

“Maybe we could go for a drink?” I said.

He frowned at me, looking perplexed. “Now?”

“Not now. Some other day.”

Why did I feel like such a clueless idiot? 

He nodded a little. “Yes, of course,” he said. 

I put out my cigarette. It was quiet for a beat.

“Want another?” I asked.

“God, yes.”

I smiled.


	2. Chapter 2

My parents had a framed photograph from their engagement day in their private apartment. I’d seen it a million times, mostly without really seeing it. They were smiling at the camera, Mom’s arm looped through Dad’s. They looked young and happy.

I tried to bring to mind others I had seen, because unlike my parents, Armitage and I weren’t in love. I found smiling for the camera a struggle, and a nuisance I didn’t really bother with, under the best of circumstances, which had led gossip magazines to dub me as ‘serious-minded’ or occasionally ‘dour’. Yet we were expected to maintain the facade that this was as much a personal choice as a political one. 

It was not completely pointless. Image and public opinion mattered, not least because we represented the concord of our nations. Mom had told me, more than once, that everyone had their personal problems, but we as members of the Royal family could not flaunt ours in public. Our people put their faith and trust in us.

For the first photos the court photographer, his name was Ian, asked Armitage and me to stand in front of the tapestry in the western drawing room. After that he asked us to sit down on the chaise lounge facing the windows. I felt stiff and self-conscious.

“Sir, your jacket,” D’Acy said, gesturing at me.

I straightened my jacket. 

Click-click-click.

“Okay, good,” Ian said. “Could you face each other?”

This was fucking awkward. I turned slightly in my seat, sensing rather than seeing Armitage doing the same. 

We looked at each other. He had green eyes. Remarkably pale eye-lashes, almost translucent. It felt anything but natural, staring at him like this. Too personal when we were practically complete strangers. I heard the clicking sound of the camera-shutter and forced myself to maintain eye-contact with Armitage. His expression was solemn and I doubted my own looked any more relaxed. 

The camera went silent.

“Just a second,” Ian said. “Sorry.”

He fiddled with the camera, but it looked affected, as if he was just trying to buy himself some time to figure out how the hell he was going to get any photos that weren’t complete disasters.

“I apologize,” he said, “I need to change to another camera.”

He gestured to his aid, who rushed forward.

“I swear, they’re gonna bring out the fucking squeaky toys,” I said, half under my breath.

Armitage smiled. I smiled.

Click. 

I turned my head. 

“Just a few more?” Ian said, raising the new camera and with a questioning look at me. As if I had any say in this. 

We posed for a few more photos and then we were finally done.

**

Unsurprisingly I had sweated through my shirt, but I was going to change before dinner anyway and I took a shower, relieved to be alone in my apartment for a moment.

I had come out of the shower when there was a knock on my bedroom door.

“Are you decent?” came D’Acy’s voice.

She always asked that, and I never replied, and then she came into the room anyway, sometimes with the result that she very quickly turned her eyes to some unspecified spot on the ceiling. 

I was decent now, though, at least reasonably so; I had a towel wrapped around my hips.

“The Queen has asked that you join her in the blue drawing room, so you can walk down to dinner together,” D’Acy said. 

“Alright. Has my new phone arrived yet?”

“I don’t know. I can check.”

“Do that.”

I blow-dried my hair and then I put on a clean suit. This time I did choose a black one. When I was dressed I ducked outside for a smoke, before I headed to the blue drawing room. 

Mom had changed into a deep blue gown and sapphire and diamond earrings dangled from her ears. Dad looked slightly uncomfortable in his suit. It had been made to fit him perfectly, but even so. One would have thought that after more than thirty years as husband of the Queen he would have gotten used to life at court. 

“Everyone ready, then?” he said.

I didn’t reply and Mom ignored him too, turning to me instead. 

“How are you feeling?” she asked. 

What kind of question was that? What did she expect me to answer?

I gave a nonchalant shrug. But Mom pushed on regardless.

“I know it isn’t easy,” she said. “I never wanted this for you.”

What? What?! What wasn’t easy? How would she even know? She had never done it!

“I just hope that the two of you can build a solid foundation to stand on, based on mutual respect and friendship,” she said.

As opposed to me taking him up to my bedroom and fuck him six ways from Sunday and then dump him? Because obviously I was planning to do that.

Why were we even having this conversation? 

“I’m ready to head down,” I said.

“Ben…”

“What? What do you think I’m doing? I’ve had all of thirty minutes in total to talk to him! What do you want me to say?!”

I stared at her. She pressed her lips together for a second.

“Fine,” she said then. “I know you appreciate the importance of this alliance and I’m not questioning your dedication. All I’m saying is that I am aware that there is a cost, and that you’re the one who’s paying it.”

I neither needed nor wanted her guilt. There had been expectations placed on me the day I was born. That was nothing new. 

“You did all you could, hon,” Dad said to Mom. “You found this Hux boy… It’ll work out.”

I shot him a dark look. That’s right, Dad, because all gay men are automatically attracted to each other and they share the same fab five personality traits, so they are bound to get along.

“Okay,” Mom said, “this is not the time for this conversation. I started it, I know. But we have a dinner to attend, so there’s no room now for flaring tempers.”

That last part was clearly meant for me. I guessed she could see it in my eyes.

The engagement dinner was a fairly small affair. The guest list consisted of a few members of the court, a couple of Naboo ministers, and the most distinguished members of the Arkanis delegation. All in all it was about forty people and the long table in Queen Breha’s dining room was big enough to seat everyone. 

Naturally, I was seated next to Armitage. He had exchanged his uniform for a gray suit, a couple of shades lighter than the one I had worn earlier, but also a three-piece. 

“Nice suit,” I said.

He seemed surprised by the compliment.

“Thank you,” he said and then, after a second’s pause: “I understand you have some excellent tailors here in Aldera.”

“Yes, there are some good ones.”

It was quiet for a beat.

“You’ll have time to go shopping,” I said then.

He was going to stay here in Alderaan for the duration of the engagement. He’d been given his own apartment in the palace.

“Yes, I might very well do that.” He smiled. It looked like a polite smile. 

“And we have plenty of art museums,” I said after another few seconds of silence, “lots of vineyards, and some really good skiing resorts in the mountains.”

He gave me an odd look. 

I wished I’d kept my mouth shut.

“I just thought, if I should give you the whole tourist spiel…” I said. “It was a joke.”

“Ah. Well. I’ll make sure to visit all the points of interest while I’m here.”

Did he always talk like this? And were those sitting nearby listening to this trainwreck of a conversation? The thought made my insides squirm.

“I recommend the skiing,” I said.

He smiled and nodded a little. 

“There’s snow all year round up in the mountains,” I said, “so you can head up there any time.”

“Yes, well…” He cleared his throat. “Skiing is perhaps not at the top of my list.”

“You don’t know how to ski?”

“Well, it snows in Arkanis about once every twenty years.” He gave me a look that was almost annoyed. 

This was going just great. 

There was another awkward pause. “I take it you enjoy skiing?” he said then and it seemed like an attempt to smooth things over.

“Yeah,” I said. 

The first course was brought in then, preventing me from saying anything more on the subject of skiing.

I made polite small talk with those sitting nearby. To a degree. I generally had no patience for talking when you had nothing of substance to say. Armitage however was quite good at it. I listened to him exchange meaningless pleasantries and comments on everything from the wine to the weather. 

It seemed as if he only found it difficult to talk to me, but I would have been quite the hypocrite if I were to hold that against him.

After the last course, coffee and after dinner drinks were served in a nearby drawing room. I had to take a piss so I took a detour on my way there. I would have loved a cigarette, but I had smoked in a bathroom in the palace once, when I was a teenager, and it turned out that the fire alarm worked very well. 

Just as I headed down the corridor towards the gents, Carise came out from the ladies’ room. She stopped and looked right at me.

I could have just walked past her, or turned around and gone to a different bathroom, but I didn’t. 

Tears welled up in her eyes. Shit.

“How could you do this?” she said. 

“It’s not as if I had a choice.” That was true, about all of it.

She was fighting the tears and her flawlessly made-up face looked tense. 

“Were you gay the whole time?” she asked.

For a moment that stumped me. It was a pretty stupid question. 

“Yes,” I said.

Her expression was a mixture of disbelief and anger.

“But…” She lowered her voice, even though we were alone in the corridor. “But we slept together!”

I felt guilty, because she was crying now, and I had been lying to her. 

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I can’t believe you would do this to me!”

“Carise, come on, you never cared about me. You wanted to be a princess.”

“So what if I did? It was supposed to be my position! And now you’re going to marry Armitage? He’s a stuck-up weasel!”

Carise calling someone ‘stuck-up’ was a major case of the pot calling the kettle black, but I refrained from saying so.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” I said, because there was not much else I could say. I wasn’t going to apologize for being gay, or for robbing her of a royal title. It wasn’t as if I had set out to deceive her, more than I had deceived everyone. We had been pushed together by circumstance and, in hindsight, I wished I hadn’t gotten involved with her the way I had. 

“I hope you two are miserable together,” she said. “At least now I know why you were always so fond of doing it _in the backdoor._ Pervert!”

She stalked past me. 

Maybe I deserved that. Or maybe I didn’t. It didn’t seem fair to blame me for it all, when I was as bound by tradition and obligation as she was. 

After I had visited the bathroom I headed to the drawing room. I grabbed a glass of whiskey and set out to fulfill the rest of my social requirements for the evening.

I felt exhausted when I returned to my apartment. It was an immense relief that this day was finally over. I shook off my jacket and pulled my tie off as I headed to the bedroom. 

The bedside lamp was lit and on the nightstand was a neat pile of things. The box containing my brand new phone, my cigarettes and a small card with a phone number written on it in D’Acy’s handwriting. 

The phone number was Armitage’s, to his private cellphone. I had asked D'Acy to get it for me, discreetly. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do with it, at least not yet. Text him about that drink? Maybe. 

In a bizarre, backwards way, it would almost have been easier if it had been Carise I was going to marry. I'd known her for years. We weren't very well-suited, even without taking my sexuality into account, but she was not as shallow and simple as she appeared at first glance. She worked hard and might have done a good job as a princess.

But now I had a shot at a normal relationship, or at least one without lies and pretenses that had to be upheld even in private. 

I had felt as if I was drowning, before. Buckling under the weight of the years of loneliness that stretched out in front of me, without end. It wasn't about Carise, even if she could be extraordinarily annoying, it was the thought of no one knowing me, of never being touched except in secret, of always being ashamed.

I had to come up with something that could break the ice a bit with Armitage. I didn't know how to make myself likeable. This wasn't the same as trying to pick up someone in a bar. But we were in this together, that had to count for something. Maybe if we could just have a conversation about that, it would be a start.

I went out to smoke. From my apartment I could climb a set of stairs to a landing halfway up to the roof. It was nothing more than a small, paved square, hidden from view between a stone wall and the facade. It was not meant to be used as a balcony, but was part of an escape route in case of an emergency. Another staircase led to the roof where there was a helicopter pad.

The temperature had dropped a little since the sun set, but it wasn't cold. I stuck the cigarette between my lips and took off my cufflinks, and dropped one. I bent down, searching for it, but it was too dark and I couldn't find it.


	3. Chapter 3

[Image Description: A picture of General Armitage Hux and Prince Ben of Alderaan, sitting on a pale green sofa. Both are wearing suits. They are looking at each other and smiling.]

**The Aldera Post  
PRINCE BEN ENGAGED**

The Royal court has released the following statement: ‘It is with the greatest pleasure that Her Majesty The Queen and Captain Han Solo announce the betrothal of their son His Royal Highness Prince Ben to General Armitage Hux, son of Grand General Brendol Hux of Arkanis and the late Maratelle Hux. The wedding will take place early this fall. Further details about the wedding will be announced in due course.’

The announcement does not come as a great surprise, as a closer collaboration between Alderaan and Arkanis has been in the works for some time. In connection with the engagement, an agreement that details the alliance was signed by both nations. (see page 4)

**

_**Really Royally**  
Your No. 1 Source for all things royal!  
This is a site for news and discussions about all the royal houses in The Republic, and occasionally other celebrities. _

_We are in no way affiliated with or endorsed by any royal house. We’re just here to have fun. (Please TPTB, don’t shut down our blog!)_

**Royal Engagement**  
_Posted by: Dora_  
[Image Description: A picture of General Armitage Hux and Prince Ben of Alderaan, sitting on a pale green sofa. Both are wearing suits. They are looking at each other and smiling.]

Everyone’s favorite grumpy prince is getting married! The lucky guy? Armitage Hux, son of Grand General Hux of Arkanis. Okay, so this is where we usually squeal about the engagement ring, but there’s no ring this time. (I don’t think I’ve ever seen Prince Ben wearing any kind of jewelry, but we know he likes his watches and cars ;)

Of course, the ring is not the important thing. Just look at that picture, they look so cute together! There’s not much info yet, just that the wedding will take place this fall. I like the idea of an autumn wedding, it’s more original than spring or summer.

We know that Prince Ben is a private guy and so is Armitage (and that’s completely understandable!), but I’m hoping we’ll get some more photos of them together soon. Maybe even an interview? God, that would be a dream come true! But they have more on their minds than just planning a wedding, they’re both hard-working people. 

As soon as we find out any more about the wedding, we’ll let you know. In the meantime...

Congratulations Prince Ben and General Hux!

tags: #prince ben #ben solo #armitage hux #general hux #gay royals #engagement

Comments:  
kara: omg!! I’m so happy for them!  
princesssss: so much hotness in one pic… goodbye ovaries  
105867: prince ben said gay rights and the republic listened i’m so proud of him  
LadyInWaiting: My handsome prince! His smile… He looks so happy!!!!  
nanana: I knew about prince Ben, but I didn’t know Hux was gay! They look good together.  
arkanisgirl: I’m from Arkanis and let me tell you, General Hux has never looked this good before. I told my friend I thought he was hot and she called me crazy. I’m gonna show her this pic.  
Benfan: skjhgakjhdgh I swear, Prince Ben is the perfect man  
Yvette: Okay, so who’s going to say it? We’re all wondering… who tops?  
princesssss: @Yvette You filthy girl… ;)  
princesssss: @Yvette We both know it’s Ben :-P  
oliviaolivia: My heart can’t handle this. They look so happy! The perfect couple!  
wen: You people are crazy, Ben is fucking ugly. His face looks like an accident. If he wasn’t a prince you’d all see it.  
Sharon: This makes me sick. Marriage is between one Man and one Woman. Royals doing this is going to make people think this is Normal. It is not Normal.  
summer: @Sharon so glad you cleared up what is Normal and not Normal, it was so Confusing...  
Patrick: @Sharon Love is love.  
Yvette: @princesssss Totally. Hux is such a twink!  
erica: @Sharon no one cares about your close-minded, homophobic, bullshit opinion.  
sunonmyface: i can’t wait for the wedding!!  
sparkly: It broke my heart when Ben came out. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against gay people and I want him to be happy, but I wanted him to be happy with me :’( I know that was never going to happen of course, but seeing this breaks my heart all over again. I’ll try to be happy for him, Armitage seems like a great guy.  
helenoftroy: What a handsome couple. Armitage is a definite improvement on his father! :-D

Loading next 20 comments…

**

I had a very busy week following the engagement. There were lots of meetings and Armitage was actually in about half of them, but there was practically no time for us to talk. There were always other people around. We had dinner twice, but my parents and his father were also present and the dinner conversation revolved around politics. 

I hadn’t had time, or the energy, to switch to my new phone, but then I finally got around to do it. The TV was showing a sport event and I was half-watching it with the sound turned off. I transferred the information from my old phone to the new one. It didn’t take long. I fiddled with it for a while, checking the new and improved functions and I tested the camera by taking a photo of my own feet at the other end of the couch. 

Armitage’s number was in there. I’d programmed it into my old phone, so now it was in this one... I thumbed the screen and brought up my contacts, then hesitated.

Finally, sickened by my own indecision, I typed out a text.

_This is Ben. I’m gonna call you in a minute._

After waiting a few seconds I pressed ‘dial’. 

I had sent the text so that he would pick up when a number he didn’t recognize showed up on his screen, and he did.

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s Ben.”

“How did you get this number?”

“I have the resources of an entire kingdom?” 

“Even so. This is my personal mobile.”

Was it really such a big deal? I had his phone number, so what? What did he think I was going to do with it, post it on the Internet?

“Do you want me to call you on your work phone instead?” I said dryly.

It was quiet for a split second.

“No, of course not,” he said. “It’s quite alright. I’m going to have to look over our security regarding personal information, though.”

“I didn’t read your medical records.”

“I’m going to assume that is a joke.”

“Why, you got anything to hide?”

He made a noise that sounded like something in between a scoff and a short laugh.

“You have a sense of humor,” he commented. 

“I’d like to think so.”

It got quiet.

“So, did you want anything in particular?” he asked then. 

“No. I just thought we should talk. You know, get to know each other.”

“Yes, of course.”

Another silence. 

“I don’t want to screw this up,” I said, feeling a bit as if I was exposing myself.

“Neither do I.”

“So…”

“So.”

Why was it so difficult to come up with something to say?

“What movies do you like?” I asked, hoping he’d be able to see the humor in having to resort to a pathetic question like that.

There was a sound of something that sounded a bit like a laugh on the other end, so maybe he did. 

“I like thrillers,” he said. “I enjoy John le Carré’s novels and they’ve done some good screen adaptions of his work.”

“You’ve worked much in military intelligence?” I asked.

“Of course I have.”

“So, do the movies get it right?”

“You can’t convince me you’ve had nothing to do with the Alderaanian intelligence service. That would be absurd for someone in your position.”

I almost smiled a little.

“Fair point, but we have a civilian intelligence agency, separate from the military.”

“Do you want to have a discussion about the pronunciation of ‘tomato’?”

At that I actually did smile. He had a sense of humor too. A slightly abrasive one, but that was okay.

"But you served?" he said, phrasing it only in part like a question, most likely because he already knew. It was common knowledge. 

"Yeah. Two years is mandatory for everyone in Alderaan."

“Even for a prince?”

“Especially for a prince.”

It got quiet again.

“It’s late,” I said. “I should let you get back to whatever you were doing.”

“I suppose it is time to go to bed.”

“Yeah. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yes. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”


	4. Chapter 4

D’Acy was doing breaststrokes in the pool, her curly hair tied into a bun on the back of her head. She spotted me and started towards the edge of the pool.

“You can stay,” I said.

Such were the rules. Staff could use the pool, but if anyone in the royal family showed up they had to leave, unless invited to remain. 

“Thank you, Sir.”

I got in the water and began swimming. The soft splashing of the water was the only sound that broke the silence, which was what I wanted. 

The pool had been built in the early 20th century but it was not particularly extravagant. The walls were white-tiled with black details and the roof was glass, domed and supported by black metal beams. The sky above the glass roof was black now and the only light came from the lamps mounted on the walls. They gave off a warm, yellow glow.

I had learnt to swim in this pool. My swimming teacher had been a short, mustachioed man who wore navy blue shorts, even though he never actually got in the water, but instead instructed me from the edge of the pool. 

What stood out more clearly in my mind however was going to the swimming pool with my parents. It had to have been before the swimming lessons. I remembered the slight chafing of the inflatable arm bands. I remembered my mom’s yellow bathing suit and Dad’s steady hands holding me.

I remembered it as one time, but I supposed there could have been more and my mind had simply merged the memories. I wasn’t sure.

I noticed when D’Acy got out and left, but she didn’t say anything and neither did I. I swam for a while longer and then I headed over to the edge of the pool and pushed myself out of the water.

It was getting quite late and the only people I saw on my way back to my apartment were a few guards. I showered to wash off the chlorine and then sat on the couch in my bathrobe. The book I was reading was on the table and I picked it up, but shortly it became apparent that I was too tired. I went out for a smoke and then I went to bed.

I woke up still tangled in the last strands of some dream, but they soon sank back into the recesses of my mind.

I had woken up of my own accord, no alarm. I had today off, but it was still early. The light outside the window was blue.

I lay motionless while thoughts ran sluggishly and randomly through my head. 

Brendol Hux and the Arkanis delegation had left a couple of days ago. Mom and I had seen them off in the grand entrance hall. Armitage had been there too and I had noticed that his farewell to his father had seemed almost as formal as ours. More formal, in fact, since my mother cracked a joke that made Brendol laugh.

She didn't like Brendol, although she hid it well, and I suspected he didn't like her either. But personal feelings didn't come into it, not when they agreed politically and the interests of our nations aligned. 

Maybe that didn't bode well for me and Armitage. The thought felt heavy. But I was nothing like my parents and maybe if he wasn't close with his father, they too had little in common. 

I had to try. I had to make the best of it. At least he was handsome. I wondered what he looked like underneath his clothes. I wondered if he thought I was ugly. I wondered what it would be like to be married. I drifted back to sleep.

"Sir?"

I was awoken by a woman's voice.

"Sir?"

That was not D'Acy's voice. It took me a second, but then I placed it. It was Rey. She was a guard and part of my personal security detail.

"Yeah?"

She wasn't in the room, I couldn't even see her through the open bedroom door, so my life couldn't be in danger.

"There's been an attack," she said. "A First Order attack, in Bromlarch."

I was out of the bed before she had even finished speaking. I looked at my phone. I had several missed calls. Fuck. I'd turned the sound off yesterday, thinking that I was going to sleep late for once. I pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. 

Rey was waiting in the living room. Black suit, white shirt, a discreet cord running from her earpiece and disappearing down her collar. 

"It's already on the news, Sir," she said.

But I didn't pause to turn on the TV. As I headed towards the office, I called Poe Dameron, our chief of staff.

"The First Order just claimed responsibility," he said when he picked up.

He updated me as I walked. A bomb had gone off in the capital of Bromlarch. The number of dead and wounded were still unknown, but it had happened at a train station during the busy commuting hour of the morning.

I felt my blood run hot and cold at the same time, scolding my veins. Those fuckers! And the fucking Senate that just stood and watched, squabbling over nonsense, while the First Order ran unchecked!

The administration wing was buzzing with activity. Phones were ringing, two TV sets showed two different news channels and people were talking.

"The Queen is on her way to Hosnian," Poe said when I walked into the room. 

I nodded. I looked at one of the TVs. Destruction and chaos. Suffering.

"There wasn't even a whisper that something like this was going to happen," Poe said.

"Any info now about any activity?" I asked.

"None within our borders. And we have precious little from anywhere else."

Because communications had broken down. Because every state in the Republic was more concerned with whether or not they would come out on top in any discussion, rather than actually having meaningful collaborations.

"Have we talked to Bromlarch? Do we know what they need?"

"The Queen is going to coordinate it from her end," Poe said.

Coordinate. More likely she was going to try to strong-arm the Senate into any kind of action.

"You're gonna have to make a statement," Poe said. "I got a text from Threepio…"

"What's that?" I pointed at one of the computer screens.

The woman sitting in front of it threw a startled glance up at me.

"Sir, we were just… we thought we should check if it worked…"

The groundwork for digital transfer of information between Alderaan and Arkanis had been laid, but the actual sharing of information in that manner was months off. Not until after the wedding. Information was power, especially in this day and age. Full transparency might not be achieved until the day Armitage and I came into power, possibly not even then.

I put my hand in my pocket. 

"Get on with what you're supposed to do," Poe told the woman.

The computer screen had shown an empty framework, a system currently unable to access the databases it was meant to eventually access. 

I went a few steps down the corridor. I didn't need for anyone to hear this, especially if I couldn't pull it off. 

Armitage picked up after the second ring.

"Are you working on this?" I asked.

"Of course." A pause. "Have you got anything?"

There was something almost cunning in his voice and I was reminded that I hardly knew him. How much could I really trust him? But we had both signed the accords. 

"No," I said. "Have you?"

"Not yet."

"Let's coordinate our operations."

"We already have a liaison officer…"

"No, digitally. More transparency."

"The system isn't even finished yet!"

"Then let's mirror the computer screens. Then our people can see what yours are working on and vice versa."

It got quiet for a moment. 

"Such a deal has not been negotiated," Armitage said then.

"I don't care. We're just months away from exchanging information on a larger scale anyway. The First Order doesn't care about negotiations, they operate easily across borders because they aren't hindered by administrative inertia."

There was another second of silence.

"I'll sign off on it if you do," I said.

"Alright."

It took a little while for the IT people to set it up, but then it was up an running. It was not much, compared to what it could have been, but it was something.

"I'm not sure The Queen would have agreed to this," Poe said.

"Let me deal with The Queen," I replied.

Before my public statement I took a quick shower and changed into a suit. Threepio had sent a text with a message from my mother, three things she wanted me to emphasize. Unity. Solidarity. A bigger perspective.

I had talked to Armitage again on the phone and asked him to come with me to the press conference. The whole point of this, our engagement and consequent marriage, was that Alderaan and Arkanis would stand together, so why not do just that?

The throne room was the oldest part of the palace. It was a big stone room, imposing in its starkness, and the far end was raised a few steps above the rest. There was an actual throne, but it was hardly ever used. My mother had sat on it at her coronation, when she was younger than I was now, and I supposed would eventually sit on it at my own.

Instead, at the top of the steps was a rostrum. The room beyond was filled with reporters, microphones and cameras.

I walked up to the rostrum in the center, Armitage following behind me. He stopped to stand at my left side. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the security guards. 

"Let me start by saying that Alderaan offers its deepest sympathies to Bromlarch and its people." My voice sounded loud in the silence. "And they have mine and my family's personal condolences and support."

Hundreds of microphones were turned in my direction.

"The First Order have once more attacked not only the nation where they set off a bomb early this morning, killing over a hundred people, injuring even more… they have attacked the whole Republic. And they will continue to do so, like the thieves and murderers they are, unless we act. As a whole. 

The Senate has lost its teeth, has become complacent and passive. The people of the Republic deserve better. They deserve leaders who put their need above their own. Leaders who are willing to stand united and offer more than empty words of solidarity.

The First Order are cowards, as bullies always are. And we do not bow to cowards."

As I turned away from the crowd our head of P.R. rushed forward. 

"There will be no questions today…"

My phone was buzzing in my pocket before I had even left the stage.

"That was a good speech," Armitage said.

"Thank you."

I slipped my phone out of my pocket. It was my mother calling. Of course.

"I have to take this," I said to Armitage.

He gave a nod in reply.

I ducked into an empty room and swiped to answer.

"Hi."

"That was not the sort of speech I had in mind," came my mother's voice on the phone.

"It was the truth."

"Everyone might not be ready to hear the truth!"

"So we do nothing?"

"Of course not. We are doing something."

"Not enough!"

"We risk war if we move to fast, if we push too hard."

"Perhaps it's you who don't want to hear the truth. As long as a bomb doesn't go off in Alderaan, it's someone else's problem, your hands are clean."

The line went very quiet.

"You're lucky I'm not there right now," she said then.

I could imagine the burn of the slap across my face well enough. That had happened, once or twice, although never when I was a child.

"We'll talk more about this when I get back," she said.

"No we won't."

"You're not King yet!"

I said nothing.

"We'll talk later," she said and then she hung up.

I ran into Dad when I was grabbing myself a cup of coffee a short while later.

"Brave speech, kid," he said.

I shot him a glance. I reached for the sugar. Normally I took my coffee black and plain, but I was running on fumes.

"Mom disagrees," I said.

"Nah, I'm not so sure."

I looked at him in surprise. 

"She might think it foolhardy, but she knows you can't really get anywhere in this world by always playing it safe."

I held back a sigh. I knew he was trying to show his support, but he didn't get it. To him everything was a game. A daring maneuver and as long as you pulled it off everything was fine.

"I gotta go," I said.

"Yeah, of course."

I returned to the office and D'Acy, whose day off had also been interrupted, approached me.

"Sir, the king of Kef Bir is on the line for you."

That was unexpected. What did he want?

"I'll take it in there."

I gestured to the office door right behind me.

There was a landline in there and I waited until the little green light started blinking and then I picked up the receiver.

"Your Majesty," I said as greeting.

"Your Royal Highness. What do you say we drop the titles?"

"Fine by me."

His name was Finn. He was a few years younger than I was and hadn't ruled Kef Bir for very long. When the last monarch died without an heir or any immediate family, the royal council had searched long and hard until they found a distant relation. Finn had not actually been keen to take the throne, but he had done it and he seemed to be doing a good job.

If the rumors were true, and since we had pretty good sources they usually were, he was in the process of making an alliance the same way we had, by marrying the youngest daughter of the King of Hays Minor.

"I saw your speech," he said, "and I agree wholeheartedly." 

"I'm glad to hear it."

He had called me, not my mother. Of course, it was possible he'd tried her first and she hadn't been available, but somehow I didn't think so.

"It's about time that we do something," he said. "If this Republic is going to make it, we need to put petty differences aside. And that is something I would like to have a conversation about."

"Me too."

Kef Bir was not the largest and most influential of nations, but that didn't mean their support and willingness to talk was insignificant. And if they also brought Hays Minor to the table…

"I won't take up more of your time right now," he said, "but I hope we can talk again soon."

"Yeah."

"Congratulations, by the way, on your engagement."

"Thank you."


	5. Chapter 5

It was late before I called it a day. I had barely eaten and my stomach was screaming. I was exhausted, but at the same time I felt strangely wired.

I took my phone out of my pocket and called Armitage.

"Hello," he said when he picked up.

"Are you hungry?" I asked.

"I could eat."

"Meet me by the kitchen?"

"Alright."

The kitchen was downstairs. There was always staff on duty, you could get room service around the clock, but after dinner time it was just a skeleton crew. 

I headed down there. A young man straightened abruptly from what he'd been doing when he saw me.

"Your Highness," he said, bowing stiffly.

"What can you scrounge up in the way of dinner?" I asked.

He gaped like a fish, looking practically terrified.

"Um… there is some, um… I mean, Sir…"

Another man came in from the next room. He was older, his name was Albert and he had worked here a long time.

"Your Highness," he said.

"Can you fix some dinner?" I asked. Again. "I know it's late."

"Not a problem, Sir. What would you like?"

"Something that doesn't take long. Actually, can you make burgers and fries?"

"Certainly."

"For two."

He nodded. "Would you like it sent to your quarters?"

"No. The red dining room."

"Absolutely."

"No pickles," I said as I turned to leave.

"Certainly, Sir. I haven't forgotten."

I made it back upstairs just as Armitage came down from the stairs leading to the wing where his apartment was located. He was still wearing his full suit. I had discarded my tie and my jacket.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi."

"This way."

I led the way to the red dining room. It wasn't far. The room was pretty small and the table only seated eight people. The walls were red, hence the name, and the mahogany sideboard boasted photographs of my family and the odd memento. In other words it was a private room, never used for state affairs.

"Are burgers okay?" I asked.

"Of course."

An unwanted awkwardness began to creep across my shoulders.

"Do you want a drink?" I asked. 

There was a drink cabinet that held a few bottles.

"I'm good, thank you."

Armitage stepped over to the sideboard.

"Is this you?" he asked, looking at one of the framed photos.

It was quite obvious that it was. I had been weird looking even as a kid.

"Yeah."

He smiled. 

I sighed. "It's okay," I said, "you can say it. I looked funny as hell."

"That's not what I was thinking."

I wondered what he had been thinking, but he didn't elaborate.

I pulled out a chair and sat down by the table. After a moment he joined me, unbuttoning his jacket as he did so.

"Quite an intensive day," he said.

"Yeah."

"Horrible what happened. How many times will something like this have to happen before the Senate wakes up?"

I looked at him. 

"I got a call…" 

I hesitated. It felt weird telling him about it, he wasn't part of the court, he wasn't even Alderaanian. I hadn't even told my mother yet about the phone call from King Finn. But then I told him. Our food arrived and we talked about the Senate and about the future of the Republic. I was only momentarily distracted because he ate his burger with a knife and fork. Who did that? He, apparently. His hands were long-fingered and slender.

When we had finished eating we went outside to have a cigarette. The courtyard was silent and cloaked in shadows. 

I discreetly watched the sharp angles of his face, thrown into relief by the faint light from the windows overhead.

"What do you say we have dinner again tomorrow?" he said. "It's bound to be a busy day, but everyone has to eat."

I smiled a little. "Sure."

His gaze lingered on me.

"And don't pretend you don't know I did you a huge favor when I agreed to your scheme with the mirrored computer screens."

"A favor that goes both ways."

He smiled. Then he took another drag on his cigarette. 

"There's going to be blowback," he said.

I assumed someone, possibly Poe, had told my mother about it, but I hadn't heard from her again. 

"At least on my end," Armitage said.

"Mine too. I expect she's saving up for a major telling-off when she gets back."

Armitage smiled again.

"Stop smiling," I said.

"But she's so tiny…"

For a second I felt flabbergasted. Partly because people tended not to make jokes about my mother, at least not to my face, but also because this seemed like a more breezy side of him, one I hadn't seen before.

I smiled and just shook my head.

**

My mother returned a couple of days later and naturally she wanted to talk to me. I would have prefered a one-on-one, but both Poe and Amilyn Holdo were in the room, as well as Threepio.

I expected her to start by telling me again why my speech was ill-advised, but instead she started talking about the exchange of information with Arkanis.

"This was not part of the agreement," she said. "We did not negotiate the terms for this type of thing."

"I did."

She gave me a flat look.

"A lot of people worked very hard, for a very long time, to finalize the accords that we all signed…"

"And yet it only took a few hours to improve the coordination of the search for The First Order."

"We're months away from launching the exchange of data!"

"Do you hear yourself? We're doing it right now. The agents are talking to each other, working together."

Mom's eyes were dark.

"It was not part of the plan. We have no control!"

"We know which screens they can see. We only share information about The First Order."

"Be that as it may, this is part of something bigger, a larger arrangement, and you know it!"

I didn't reply. Of course I knew. But I had negotiated the terms, I wasn't an idiot. I wasn't going to give Arkanis access to every piece of data we had just on a whim. The exchange was strictly about information pertaining to The First Order.

Mom sighed. 

"Obviously I'm happy that you and Armitage work well together," she began.

This was condescension. I wasn't going to sit here and listen to this. I moved to get up.

"I'm not finished," Mom said. 

I met her gaze.

"This is what you wanted," I said. "How did you think it was going to work?"

She didn't reply.

"I got a call from King Finn," I said. "He's interested in cooperation, to bring some initiative back to the Senate. You know, that which you're always talking about."

"That's good news." 

She looked at me. 

"It appears we will both be getting what we want," she said. "After the wedding, I'm appointing you to be Alderaan’s new Senator. I've already talked to Grand General Hux, he's going to do the same with Armitage."

I felt the floor fall out from underneath me. 

"It'll give you an excellent opportunity to work on the interstate relations that you clearly care so much about."

I didn't know what to say. My gaze flickered of its own accord to Poe and Holdo. Their faces were carefully blank.

"God knows Senator Agrippa deserves to step down, he's not getting any younger," Mom added.

As if she had not just put me in my place, swiftly and effectually, without losing any credibility in the public's eye.

"Will that be all?" I finally said, taking care to keep my voice neutral.

"Yes, that's all for now."

I rose from my seat and left the room.

Fuck! 

Blood pounded in my ears.

Being appointed Senator was not necessarily something I would have minded, had the circumstances been different. If I had been given a chance to give it some thought. It was an important position, representing Alderaan in the Republic Senate. But the way it had come about made it feel like a punishment. She had cut me off from the day to day ruling of Alderaan. 

I found it very hard not to feel like a scolded schoolboy and I hated it.

I wondered if Armitage had received the news yet. I wondered what he thought about it.

I went to my apartment. I had planned to take a day off or two, I desperately needed it, but now I felt restless. I flopped down on the couch and put my feet up on the armrest. I pressed my face against a pillow and groaned, but it made me feel juvenile and I stopped.

The worst part was that my mother actually agreed with me in principle. Or did she? How could I be sure she didn't actually prefer the status quo? After all, it had worked throughout her reign.

I stared up at the ceiling. She had blindsided me. She expected so much, she expected everything.

I couldn't lie here. I got up. I'd go for a drive. Clear my head.


	6. Chapter 6

I avoided Armitage for a few days. I was in a bad mood and I was not unaware of the fact that my volatile temper was an unattractive quality. I had been told as much.

But then he caught up with me. I rounded a corner, on my way to my apartment, just as he came up the stairs.

For a split second, before he saw me, there was something unexpectedly vulnerable on his face. Then it was gone.

"You've been avoiding me," he said.

It was true, but I didn't want to admit it. 

"Have you got a moment?" he asked. 

"Yeah, sure."

Once in the apartment he cast a glance around the living room, as if perhaps he was trying to gauge what kind of person lived here, but I had very few personal belongings on display.

The sun was setting and in the golden light from the windows his hair seemed to glow like fire. I inventoried my feelings about redheads. I had no pre-existing faiblesse. How did I feel about developing one?

"Do you want something to drink?" I asked.

"You have a private kitchen here?" 

"No, but I have whiskey, and glasses."

"I'm good, thank you."

"You want something else? Coffee? I can call the kitchen."

"Well, tea would be nice."

"Okay."

I picked up the phone and ordered tea, then I turned to Armitage again. I put my hands in my pockets.

"I assume you have been informed of your upcoming assignment?" he said.

"Yeah. You too?"

He nodded.

"It will be an excellent opportunity to work on international cooperation," he said.

His phrasing was so close to how my mother had put it that I gave him a suspicious look.

"And stop this so-called Republic from imploding," he added, almost derisively.

"Prevent civil war," I said without inflection.

He nodded at me. "Precisely."

He wasn't being ironic. 

"You don't think…" I started, but broke off.

"I don't think what?" he prompted.

"That we're being… pushed aside?"

He raised an eyebrow.

“Being appointed senator hardly equates being moved to the sidelines,” he said.

I wanted to ask him if his father had been angry with him for approving the information exchange. I’d heard Brendol Hux had a temper, but I hadn’t seen it. During his stay here in Alderaan, the Grand General had been a pleasant, if somewhat crude, guest. That last part had shone through, despite his attempts to appear otherwise. But the question felt too personal, I didn’t know Armitage well enough. 

“I guess I’m not enthusiastic about the prospect of sitting through endless, pointless discussions with morons,” I said.

A small smile played at the edges of Armitage’s mouth. 

“I see your point,” he said. 

“I won’t have the same insight into Alderaan affairs,” I said. “I assume it will be the same for you.”

“To a degree, yes. On the other hand, working in the Senate could also mean not having someone looking over your shoulder all the time.”

That was true. I would be representing Alderaan, but there was nothing stopping me from saying whatever I wanted in the Senate. Perhaps my mother was expecting me to get tangled up and hampered by the unyielding web of inconsequential squabbling that dominated the dialogue on the Republic level. But if I could cut through that…

“You’re right,” I said.

Of course, I already knew that. I had just been busy feeling wounded because I was almost thirty and my mother was still making decisions regarding my life over my head. In light of Armitage’s focus on the task ahead I felt a tad embarrassed about that fact.

The tea arrived and I gestured to the servant to put the tray on the coffee table. The tray held a pot and two cups, milk and sugar. Armitage and I sat down on the couch, a respectable distance between us, and since I was the host, I served. 

“Do you want milk or sugar?” I asked.

“No, thank you.”

I poured myself a cup too. I didn’t even drink tea, but eating and drinking shit you didn’t like came with the job.

“Can you imagine a Senate actually capable of action?” Armitage said. “A Republic working together?”

“Joint intelligence services.”

“Joint military exercises.”

“Equal education system.”

“Functioning environmental protection.”

We both smiled. 

“It all starts with building alliances,” Armitage said. “Some have begun to see this…” He made a vague gesture, probably meant to encompass the two of us, or rather our respective nations. “And your new friend Finn. Have you heard from him again?”

“No. He got engaged last week.”

“Yes, I heard. To one of Tico’s daughters. Is it the plump one?”

I frowned. “Neither of them are plump, as far as I can remember.”

“It doesn’t matter. The point is, Kef Bir and Hayes Minor together would be excellent allies…”

“I know.”

“So that’s a good start. Perhaps you could send him something?”

“Send him something?”

“Yes, like a card. To say congratulations on the engagement, blah, blah… Just as a reminder of the previous conversation, open up for further dialogue.”

That was actually not a bad idea. 

“Yeah, I’ll do that.”

“Perhaps I should sign it as well?”

He did not deliver that last line quite as smoothly as he had probably hoped. But although I might have been tempted at one point to keep my ‘new friend’ Finn to myself, the situation had changed. The signing of the accords had changed everything. 

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” I said. 

Armitage looked pleased and I had to hold back a smile. God, he was ridiculous, wasn’t he? But he was smart and I felt excited, because everything he said were things I agreed with. The more I talked to him, the more evident it became that we shared a common goal. 

“I wanted to ask you,” he said then, “if you’ve made a shortlist. Regarding the houses in Hosnian, I mean.”

Something seemed to clam up a bit inside my chest. D’Acy had given me a list of prospective properties in Hosnian, but I hadn’t looked at it. Moving to Hosnian was part of the package, that’s where the Senate was located, but something about it made me feel trapped. Maybe it was because of how this whole Senator thing had come about. Maybe it was because I didn’t actually want to leave Alderaan, I had lived here my entire life, except for a year studying abroad. Maybe it was because sharing a house with Armitage was difficult to imagine. The idea of doing so made the fact that we were soon to be married seem more real. 

“I haven’t had time,” I lied. 

Get a fucking grip, Ben, I thought. You like him. This could have been so much worse. 

“Well, I’ve looked through it and I’ve picked out a few that seem promising,” Armitage said. 

He reached for the tablet he’d put down on the coffee table when he took a seat. He’d had it with him when he got here, but I hadn’t thought much about it. Everyone carried around tablets. 

He shot me a look. 

“If you care to take a look?” he said.

“Sure.”

I felt awkward, thinking about our future cohabitation, but I tried to hide it. He tapped on the tablet, then handed it to me. 

I scrolled through his shortlist, looking at pictures of airy rooms with large windows and a modern, minimalistic look to them. I skimmed through descriptions, five bedrooms, six bedrooms, private gym, underground parking. 

“You have good taste,” I said and shot him a glance.

He smiled a little. 

“Number two or five,” I said when I handed the tablet back.

He scrolled to take a look. “Hm,” he said. “Is it the gyms that determine your choice?”

“Why, are you saying I look fit?”

In the warm light from the windows it was hard to tell, but I could have sworn his cheeks turned slightly pink. 

There was an awkward pause. 

“Sorry,” I said. 

“No, it’s quite alright,” he said. “And you do look as if you work out regularly.”

He didn’t quite meet my gaze. The silence seemed to stretch out. 

I scolded myself for my clumsy attempt to flirt. What did I do that for?

I’d asked him if there was someone else and he’d told me there wasn’t, but even assuming he had been truthful, there was nothing to suggest he found me attractive. Did I find him attractive? I felt as if I couldn’t even tell, because of the sheer weight of expectations. 

I put my cup down. “If I’m going to drink this, it needs a kick,” I said and got up. 

I went over to the cabinet where I kept a few bottles and returned to the couch with one.

“You want some?” I asked.

Despite turning down my offer of a drink before, he held out his cup.

“Smoke?” I asked.

He nodded.

I led the way to my private smoking area. Armitage looked at the small, unadorned square with a skeptical expression.

“Why don’t you move into rooms that have a balcony?” he asked.

“I don’t like any of the apartments with balconies. Besides, they all face one of the courtyards.”

Courtyards overlooked by row upon row of windows. Here, no one was watching. 

We smoked in silence and then I lit a second cigarette. He did too, squinting a little into the rapidly fading light. 

I went to sit down with my back against the wall. The stones held the warmth of the day’s sunlight and it seeped through my shirt. Armitage hesitated a moment and then he took a seat next to me.

“You could at least get some furniture,” he said. 

“No one ever comes here but me,” I said.

“Oh, should I feel honored?”

I smiled a little. I topped up his cup and mine. I’d brought the bottle.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” he asked.

“I’m trying to get me drunk.”

Even though he was sitting no more than a feet from me, the distance felt insurmountable. What was the goal anyway? Get him to fall madly in love with me? Fall in love with him? 

I thought about my grandparents, whom I had never met, but who, judging by how my mother spoke about them, had been greatly devoted to each other. They didn’t chose each other, it was a political marriage and my grandfather was almost twenty years older than my grandmother. How did they do it? Had they really been as close as my mother claimed, or was it just a child’s view of her parents’ infallibility? 

“We can have a gym installed, no matter which house we chose,” Armitage said.

“Which one is your first choice?” I asked.

“The first one on the list.”

“Let’s go with that one then.”

“You’re sure?”

I nodded. “Like I said, you have good taste.”

I said it in a tone of voice deliberately meant to not sound flirtatious. 

“Apparently, so do you,” he said. 

“You think I have good taste because I think you have good taste?”

“Obviously.”

I smiled. 

There was just too much pressure. Maybe that was the whole problem. I stared a the cerulean sky, the emerging stars almost completely drowned out by light pollution.

“Look,” I said after a moment, “the wedding is in just a few months, and there are going to be hundreds of people there. Do you want to get it out of the way now?”

Armitage turned his head and looked at me. 

“What?” he asked.

I realized I had spoken obscurely. 

“A kiss,” I said, feeling something akin to butterflies flapping in the pit of my stomach. “Wanna give it a try?”

He was quiet for a second, his face all but unreadable.

“All right,” he said then. 

We were sitting side by side, so the angle was slightly awkward, but even more so was the situation as a whole. A scripted kiss. 

I leaned closer. He didn’t move. Maybe he was watching my mouth, I wasn’t entirely sure. If he didn’t lean forward now, I was going to have to put my hand down on the ground between us, for balance. 

But then he did lean forward, tilting his head a little to the side, and we pressed our lips together. It was a brief kiss, very chaste, and nothing about it felt natural. 

I faced forward again, my gaze fixed on my own feet. I didn’t know what to say. Maybe I should just give him a blow job, maybe that would break the ice. 

“Let’s try again,” I said and this time I didn’t move in quite as slowly. 

I felt the faint scratch of stubble against my face, his lips warm and soft against mine. Feel something, I thought to myself, just fucking feel something! 

He broke off the kiss. 

I straightened again. I wanted to bang my head against the wall.

“This is going fucking great,” I said. 

“Sorry,” he said, almost at the same time. 

I wasn’t sure exactly what he was apologizing for, for pulling away, or for the lack of enthusiasm, or something else. 

“You want a blow job?” I said, feeling something that felt a lot like self-loathing.

“No.”

Then he moved. I caught it in my peripheral vision and turned my gaze. He turned to face me, kneeling right next to my thigh, and his expression was indecipherable, the deepening shadows making his face look gaunt and powerful. Then he placed his hands on the sides of my face and kissed me. 

He was a fucking amazing kisser. I noted that when my startled brain begun to process conscious thought again. At first it was just lips, moving in synchrony, then the warm slickness of tongue. He was still holding my face, the fingers on one hand half-buried in my hair. 

I tried not to think, tried not to scrutinize and evaluate every emotion that flitted through me, searching and grabbing for hints of desire, but it was difficult because the pressure was still there. The pressure to make this work, to feel attracted to him. 

But it was a great kiss. There was no doubt about it. 

When he pulled back his gaze was downcast, fixed somewhere on the ground. 

“You’re good at that,” I said, because I felt as if I had to say something.

He didn’t say anything. 

“I have to get going,” he said then and stood up.

I hadn’t expected that and I scrambled to my feet.

“Wait.”

He stopped by the top of the stairs. I realized I didn’t know what to say.

There were people who held their emotions on a tight, tight lease and he was definitely one of them, because I had no idea what he was thinking. 

“That was nice,” I said.

Because it was. Even so, the words felt inadequate and perhaps even a tad dishonest. It was nice, but all of this was still weird. I also felt something almost akin to gratefulness to him for saving a situation, initiated by me, that would have turned infinitely more awkward and downright depressing if he hadn’t taken the initiative. But I had no idea how to put that into words. 

“If you wanted to impress me,” I said, “it worked.”

That earned me a small smile, even though the joke was lame. 

“I’ll let my assistant know which house we’ve settled on,” he said then.

He clearly wanted to take a step back from it all, from what had just transpired and what it meant or didn’t mean, and I let him. Maybe I felt slightly relieved too, to be back on safe ground, talking about practicalities.

I nodded. “Good.”

“I’ll see myself out.”

He left and I lit another cigarette, thinking I had to settle my nerves or something, although the last thing I needed right now was probably more nicotine.


	7. Chapter 7

“Have you considered giving D’Acy a position on your senatorial delegation?” Mom said over the phone.

Despite the fact that we both lived in the palace, we spoke more often on the phone than face to face. The Palace was big and we were both busy people.

“No,” I said. “I need her where she is.”

“I’m just saying, she’s very competent and perhaps it’s time for a promotion.”

I ignored Mom’s statement.

“I talked to Agrippa,” I said. “I think it’ll be a smooth transition.”

“Let’s hope so. Another thing, it would be wise to have someone from the House of Antilles on the delegation. Their support is vital and they have long been represented on the delegation.”

“I’ve already offered a Temmin a position.”

“Temmin Wexley?”

While not a member of House Antilles by birth, his mother had married into the family and everyone knew Wedge Antilles considered him his son. 

“An unexpected choice,” my mother said. “Admittedly, I don’t know him very well.”

“Well, I do.”

Mom sighed. “I’m not criticizing you. And the House of Antilles will be happy, I’m sure.”

The light on my landline was blinking.

“I have to go,” I said, “I have another call.”

“Okay.”

I hung up. I had been on my feet, pacing, but now I sat down behind my desk and picked up the receiver.

“Yes?” I said.

“I have King Finn on the line for you,” came D’Acy’s voice.

“Put him through.”

I had sent a card, congratulating him and his fiancé on their engagement. Just a short missive, semi-formal, and signed by both me and Armitage. 

There was a click on the line.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi. Thanks for the well-wishes, I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I didn’t send you guys a card, so now you’ve made me look bad.”

“You’re coming to the wedding aren’t you, so you can make up for it.”

He laughed. 

“Listen, I’m heading out to sea for a few weeks, on vacation. Why don’t you and General Hux come out for a while? It’ll be a small group of people, I’m sure you know most of them. There’s plenty of space on the boat.”

I felt triumph well up inside me. Sure, this was just pleasantries and chances were nothing of import would be discussed onboard that boat, but this was groundwork being laid. He definitely wanted to have that conversation about the future of the Republic.

“Sure,” I said, before I remembered the invitation wasn’t just for me and I couldn’t actually answer for both of us. “Well, I have to check with Armitage, but I’m sure he’ll be happy to.”

“Everyone needs vacations, right?”

“True.”

“It’s a lot of hard work, running a country. I realize that makes me sound like a total noob, especially to you, since you’ve basically been doing it your whole life.”

I smiled a little. 

“But it has its perks,” he said. “It’s a really nice boat.”

I laughed a little. 

“I’ll be sure to pass that along when I talk to Armitage,” I said.

I had no idea how Armitage felt about boats, but it was nice to discover I actually knew pretty well how he would react to an invitation from Finn. 

“Yeah, do that,” Finn said. “Well, have your people call to my people, and all that?”

It was almost as if he was putting on an act, pretending to be far less important and powerful than he was, and at the same time it didn’t feel affected at all. I kind of liked him.

“Yeah,” I said. 

After we had hung up I waited only a few seconds before I called Armitage. 

We hadn’t kissed again. We had talked, mostly about politics, which equalled sticking to safe grounds in a way, but there was also plenty to talk about.

“That is very interesting,” he said after I had relayed Finn’s invitation. 

“I think so too.”

“He is definitely working towards building a closer collaboration.”

“I know.”

It didn’t seem to matter to Armitage that I knew, because he went on talking.

“Even without a formalized alliance,” he said, “if we can reach an informal consensus on important matters, that would go a long way in the Senate.”

“I know.”

“Right. Do you have any idea why he hasn’t approached your mother?”

“No. I can take a guess, but…”

“Take a guess.”

I took a deep breath. “All right. He could be scared of her. He could be looking for allies who are less set in their ideas. Or he’s thinking ahead, and he wants an alliance with Alderaan-Naboo-Arkanis, nothing less than that. Has he talked to your dad?”

“Not to my knowledge. And I would know if he had, trust me. Let’s assume your last assessment is the correct one…”

“Because it’s the one most beneficial to us?”

“Because we should work on the presumption that Finn is not an idiot. Alderaan-Naboo-Arkanis joined with Kef Bir and Hayes Minor, that would be a force to be reckoned with, literally and figuratively.”

He fell silent. Maybe he was thinking the same thing I was thinking. Formalizing such an alliance probably meant marrying off our future heir to a child of Finn and Rose’s. Children that didn’t even exist yet. Just the thought of having children, raising children, with Armitage felt beyond weird. 

“So how long will we be staying?” Armitage said then.

“I don’t know. He said a couple of days. Maybe a week. You know how these things are.”

“Hm, well. Do I have to wear shorts?”

I laughed. “What?”

“I don’t like wearing shorts. It’s a ghastly item.”

I smiled. “You don’t have to wear shorts if you don’t want to. Have you never been on vacation before?”

“Of course I have! But as it happens, I work very hard and holidays are a luxury I rarely have time for.”

This conversation had taken on a slight air of the bizarre.

I had been on plenty of vacations much like the one we were about to go on now. I got invited and I went, but truth be told, if it were up to me, I prefered traveling to cities. I liked art museums and old churches. Like a nerd.

“Bring swimming shorts,” I said, “if you can deign to wear that. You can swim?”

“Is that supposed to be funny? Of course I can swim.”

“Not everybody can swim.”

“I can. Why are we having this discussion?”

“You brought it up.”

“No, I didn’t.”

He sounded indignant.

“Whatever,” I said. “We’ll go and then we invite the two of them to something, in a little while. Sounds good?”

“Yes.”

**

“Did you pack an extra pair of sunglasses?” I asked.

I had a tendency to lose them.

“Yes,” D’Acy said. “Two pairs, actually.”

I smiled a little and she smiled back.

It was true what my mother had said. D’Acy was overqualified for this job and if I had been a more decent person, I would have seen to it that she advanced. 

“What are you going to do on your vacation?” I asked. 

“Oh, I haven’t quite decided yet. Possibly go to the Glarus Lagoons.”

“Does, um, your wife have time off too?”

I knew she was married, but couldn’t remember the name of her spouse. That was probably pretty shitty of me, she had worked for me for years.

“Yes, a week. So we’ll probably go somewhere then.”

I could tell from the look on D’Acy’s face that she found this sudden interest in her personal life odd, so I decided to drop it.

“I hope you have a good time,” I said.

“You too, Sir.”

I headed towards the door and was just about to open it, when she spoke again.

“Sir?”

I turned around. 

“If I may,” she said, “I would just like to say…” She looked as if she was weighing her words. “I know your reasons are your own, and they have nothing to do with me or anyone else, but what you’re doing, standing up for who you are, and marrying General Hux, it means a lot. For me, for the people of Alderaan, and the whole Republic.”

I felt horribly awkward. She was right that my reasons were my own, they were personal and selfish, and I had not set out to be a role model for anyone. Then again, I knew that everything I did had a political effect. Hell, even when I bought a new pair of jeans, the sales of that particular brand went up. But this was more important than fashion, and I knew that too. Even if I hadn’t, I could see it in D’Acy’s expression - a tad self-conscious, but sincere too. It was important enough for her to say this to me, even though it transgressed the professional relationship we had. 

I nodded a little and smiled a little and she smiled too and then I left.

**

A helicopter brought us out to the yacht. It was a dark blue and white, sleek looking thing, so far from the coast that there was nothing but blue ocean in every direction.

My dad had been a helicopter pilot in the Army and when I was a kid I wanted to be a pilot, just like him. I wasn’t sure how long my parents let me keep the delusion that I could be. 

The helicopter set down on a helipad at the bow of the boat. As Armitage and I got out, two guys from the staff came forward to grab our luggage. The wind from the rotor blades tugged on my clothes and hair and when the helicopter took off again I saw Armitage smooth down his hair. I pushed my own out of my face. 

He wasn’t wearing shorts, but a pair of chinos and a white shirt, no tie and no jacket. It was the most casual I had seen him, thus far. I wasn’t wearing shorts either, because even though I hadn’t told him, I didn’t like them either. 

Armitage’s security guard, his name was Cardinal, and Rey followed the guys with the luggage into the bowels of the ship, disappearing from view, just as Finn came to greet us. He was a handsome guy, with an almost movie star quality about him. He looked as good on the cover of magazines as he did on bank notes and coins.

“Hey, Ben,” he said, smiling and shaking my hand. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too.”

He was wearing shorts, the type of brightly colored kind that people tended to wear in Scarif. 

“Armitage,” he said, treating him to the same smile and shake. “You don’t mind if I call you Armitage, right?”

“Of course.”

“Great. Call me Finn. And have you met my fiancé? This is Rose.”

I had met Rose, although I didn’t know her very well. My impression of her was that she was nice and very pretty. And she had fantastic breasts. It was impossible not to notice, due to the bikini she was wearing. 

“Hi,” she said, smiling and shaking hands with both me and Armitage. “It’s so nice that you could come.”

“I’ll show you to your quarters and then you can come say hi to everyone,” Finn said. 

We had been given adjoining rooms across the hall from Finn’s own suite. That was an honor, especially since there were no other rooms on this floor as far as I could tell. There was also a level of tact involved, because the two rooms were joined by a door, leaving it our own private business whether Armitage and I slept in the same bed or not.

“Make yourself at home,” Finn said. “Take whatever time you need to get installed and when you feel up for it, it’s just down the hall and up the stairs to the sundeck.”

“Thank you,” Armitage said, beating me to it, so I just smiled.

Finn closed the door behind him when he left.

“Which room do you want?” Armitage asked.

“Doesn’t matter.”

Armitage made a face as if to say it didn’t matter to him either and used the inner door to head into the other one. 

“Your bags are here,” he said a moment later.

I had just realized they probably were, because they weren’t in here. I went to get them. Armitage had already opened his and was pulling out shirts. 

“I stand corrected,” he said, “she’s not plump.”

It took me a second to get what he was talking about, but then I remembered.

“No, but did you see her breasts?”

He frowned at me. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be gay?” he said then. 

I shrugged. “So? She has amazing breasts.”

He was still looking at me with something like skepticism, or suspicion, I couldn’t really pin it down. Jealousy? No, that didn’t make sense, because we weren’t an item. One kiss did not make us a real couple. What we’d managed, thus far, was some sort of part professional, part friendly relationship. Under the circumstances that was good, it was a good start. All the same, it occurred to me that maybe it was a bad idea to admire other people’s bodies in front of him. 

“I’m just saying, they’re…” I felt I should probably not say anything more about Rose Tico’s breasts. Truth be told, it was an inappropriate conversation to begin with. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

I still had a very hard time interpreting his expression. 

“Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I’m blind,” I said. “Maybe you are. That’s fine.”

He didn’t say anything, but turned back to his suitcase. 

I felt like a blundering idiot. 

“You’re very handsome,” I said and immediately regretted it. 

His gaze snapped back to me. 

What was I doing? I was acting as if I had the experience of a twelve-year-old. Fuck. I raised my shoulders in a half-shrug and then I turned back to the door to my own room. 

“Thank you,” he said behind me. 

I noticed he didn’t return the compliment. Then again, why would he? I wasn’t handsome.


	8. Chapter 8

Finn had been right when he said I would know most of the other guests. I was surprised however to find Temmin Wexley there.

“Snap,” I said and shook his hand. “I didn’t know you were going to be here.” 

He smiled a little sheepishly and his gaze drifted to Natasha Cilla, a Corellian noble. She was younger than me, putting her close to twenty years or so younger than Temmin, but there was something youthful about him, something I figured he would retain until his old age. Besides, who was I to judge? I used to have a tremendous crush, in lack of a better word, on a man fifteen years my senior.

I said hi and shook hands with everyone. Some of them I liked, some of them I detested, but it made no real difference. In a way it was similar to having relatives you couldn't stand, you still had to invite them to all the family gatherings.

In line with the tact Finn had already shown as a host, but conspicuous all the same, was Carise’s absence. She was notoriously present for any social function, formal or otherwise, hosted by anyone who was anyone in the Republic. But she hadn't been invited. I wondered if that rankled her, or if she was relieved not to be here.

The sundeck was spacious and offered shade as well as sun, there was a bar and comfortable looking sun loungers and sofas. We were served drinks and there were large trays of refreshments.

Conversation was light, it drifted here and there, moving as people moved and formed new constellations. Then someone wanted to go swimming and a majority wanted to tag along. Armitage declined. Maybe he really did loathe shorts to such a degree, or maybe he was just worried about getting sunburnt. He was very pale. I was pale too, but I tanned. He probably didn't.

The water was a bit crisp this far out at sea, but not cold. The air was so warm that, aside from my hair, I was dry again within moments of getting back on the boat. 

I took a shower and dressed in jeans and a shirt before dinner that evening. When I was ready I knocked on the door to Armitage’s room.

"Come in."

I opened it and stepped through. He had changed into clean clothes and I could faintly smell something that was either his deodorant or cologne. Or maybe shampoo. Either way it smelled nice. 

He was just putting on his watch. It was a nice watch.

Was I constantly on the lookout for things about him that were likeable? He had good taste in houses, watches, cologne. Did that even mean anything? 

"What kind of watch is that?" I asked.

He held his arm up a little so I could see. Definitely nice. 

"Nice," I said.

He smiled a little. 

He had put on a pair of black pants and a black shirt. Still no tie or jacket. He looked good. 

"Do you own a pair of jeans?" I asked.

I'd meant it teasingly, but I was suddenly worried he wouldn't take it like that and wished I'd kept my mouth shut. But he seemed to give it some thought and then he said, not in an offended tone of voice:

"I don't think I do."

"I'll make you a deal, you get me a watch like that, and I'll get you a pair of jeans."

"That hardly seems like a fair trade."

"Really nice jeans."

He smiled and, it wasn't just wilful imagination, my stomach lurched a little.

Caution was for cowards. I took a step forward, into his space. For a split second he looked almost bewildered, but he didn't move away. I put a hand on his shoulder and kissed him gently. His breath was slightly minty, as if he had just brushed his teeth. 

I looked at him, my face still close to his. He smiled a little.

"We're going to be late," he said.

I stepped back, unsure whether I should feel rebuffed or not. He had returned my kiss, his mouth adjusting against mine. 

“I detest tardiness,” he said, which made me think he’d guessed, or seen on my face, what I was thinking.

“Yeah, me too.”

He stepped over to the bedside table and picked up his phone. I watched him check the battery status before unplugging it and slipping it into his pocket. My gaze was drawn to his slender hips and, since his sleeves were rolled up, yet another concession to casualness I hadn’t witnessed before, to his wrists. His forearms were lightly dusted with fair hair and even though his hands were slim, there was nothing feminine about them.

I realized he had probably noticed me watching him, but he didn’t comment on it. I followed him out into the corridor.

"Fuck, I forgot my cigarettes," I said.

"I have mine."

"Oh, okay."

We were almost at the top of the stairs when he turned around and I stopped in my tracks, trying to look as if I hadn't just been staring at his ass.

"I'm not comfortable with public displays of affection," he said.

"Okay."

"I just thought you should know."

I nodded. "That's fine."

Dinner was served outside. The evening breeze was warm and felt soft like velvet against my face. After everyone had finished eating we moved to a long couch, shaped like a U around a table that looked like a big mushroom growing out of the deck.

I was sitting next to Armitage, liberally helping myself to his cigarettes and not thinking much about doing so. Even so, and even though I was not a huge fan of public displays of affection myself, I felt very much aware of the difference between the two of us and the other couples there. Especially Finn and Rose.

Ostensibly, their situation was the same as ours, they were getting married for political reasons. But I thought I could detect something more in the way they interacted with each other. They seemed comfortable with each other, but I couldn't say if it was friendship or if they were actually in love. Or maybe it was just a show put on for the benefit of everyone there, including perhaps, themselves.

I got my answer later that night. It was an expensive boat, but it was still a boat, with walls far thinner than those in a palace, and the two of them were _loud_. 

I stared up at the dark ceiling. Whatever they were doing, they seemed to be having a lot of fun. I found myself feeling envious. Not so much about the sex, but the fact that they'd gotten that far and apparently it had worked out fine for them.

But yeah, about the sex too. 

Shamelessly listening to the sounds coming from across the hall I masturbated and the thought that Armitage must be able to hear them too popped into my head, and what was _he_ doing? And then I came.

I said nothing to Armitage about the noise from across the hall when I met up with him for breakfast the next morning. Since he had reacted poorly when I commented on Rose's breasts, I figured he might not like that type of talk. 

Maybe he was a bit prude? It did sort of fit with the rest of his proper demeanor. Then again, he didn't kiss like a prude. 

It seemed we were the first to rise, apart from Jamillia and Godfrey. They were dressed in swimwear and appeared to have already been in the water. They waved to us from where they were sitting further down on the deck.

"Do you know him?" Armitage asked me as we headed to the breakfast buffet.

"Godfrey? Yeah, he's an idiot."

Armitage smiled.

"Yes, that was my impression too."

"Jamillia isn't though," I said. 

She was expected to be appointed the next State Secretary of Naboo. Mom was just waiting for Sio Bibble to announce he was ready to step down.

Armitage and I had had dinner together, but never breakfast and it was a bit unexpected to have it now, just the two of us. 

"I didn't think you drank coffee," I said.

"Just one cup, in the morning."

There was something almost restless about him, and finally he said:

"I should have brought my tablet up here."

"Am I that boring?"

"Of course not, but I usually read the paper in the morning. Don't you?"

"Usually."

"It just feels weird not to know what's going on."

"Do you want me to get it for you?"

The offer seemed to surprise him.

"No, thank you, you don't have to do that."

It was quiet for a moment.

"Tell me about Jamillia," Armitage said then. "I know she's going to be the next State Secretary of Naboo."

"What do you want to know?"

"Anything. I'm assuming you know her pretty well?"

"Yeah, pretty well."

"Will she be supportive when you take the throne?"

"I don't know. It's hard to tell, I pushed her into a pond once when we were about seven."

Armitage gave me a flat stare and then ignored what I had just said.

"Do you think she'll be loyal?"

"She doesn't have a choice, anything else would be classified as treason."

"You know what I mean. Any decisions we make moving forward need to be supported by the Naboo council."

"Armitage, this is a vacation."

"No, it's not. It’s networking."

He had a point. 

"Okay," I said, brushing breadcrumbs from my hands. "There will be some sort of honeymoon arrangement after the wedding. Where do you want to go?"

"I haven't given it any thought."

"Give it a thought now. Where would you like to go?"

"I don't know."

He didn't seem very interested in giving it any thought, but I pressed on regardless.

"What vacations have you been on?" I asked. "That you liked?"

He was quiet for a few seconds. 

"Last fall, Phasma and I… Have I mentioned her?"

I shook my head.

"She's a friend of mine. Anyway, we went to Coruscant for a week."

"And?"

"And what?"

"What did you do there?"

"We went out to eat, they have some excellent restaurants, with a very good wine selection too, and we went shopping. Oh, and we went to the Imperial Museum."

I tried not to laugh, but failed.

"What?" Armitage said, frowning at me.

"That is the gayest vacation I've ever heard of."

"It is not!"

He looked genuinely aggrieved.

"Come on," I said. "Wine and shopping, with your girlfriend?"

"She's not my girlfriend!"

"Friend who is a girl."

"What do you like to do on holidays then? Survival courses in the wilderness?"

I had a feeling I was on the verge of actually pissing him off. 

"Actually, I like museums," I said truthfully. "But we can't go to Coruscant. Too many people, it would turn into a circus."

"Let's not go out on a boat, at least."

I looked at him. On our honeymoon it would just be me and him. 

I changed the subject.


	9. Chapter 9

"Snap, are you coming?" Natasha called from the ladder clinging to the hull of the boat.

"You go on," Temmin called back. "I haven't finished my beer."

He held up his bottle in demonstration. Natasha waved and then she climbed into the water. Temmin turned to me and smiled. Again there was something a little sheepish about it, but at the same time he looked almost, I don't know, happy. 

"Not sure yet how serious it is," he said. "I'm not exactly, you know, an Adonis."

He laughed a little. I guessed he was referring to his not very slim figure, or perhaps the age difference. But he was a good looking guy. And he was smart. Really smart.

I smiled a little. 

"She's a good match," I said then.

He nodded a little, then he said:

"You know, I'm very honored and happy to be part of the senatorial delegation, but I'm not really a very political guy."

"That's not why I chose you." 

"Okay. That's good. As long as everyone knows what they're getting."

It was quiet for a second. The sound of happy voices and splashing in the water seemed to come from afar.

"Just to be clear," Temmin said then. "I'm not with Natasha in some sort of attempt to rise in the ranks."

"Don't worry, I never thought you were."

That was me doing that, in a manner of speaking.

"How did you two meet?" I asked.

"I went with Dad to visit some relatives in Corellia. We went to a barbeque, and there she was."

It sounded so normal, like something out of a movie. 

"They're obsessed with barbeques," Temmin said. "The Corellians."

"Yes, I know."

Having a barbeque was, and had always been, my dad's idea of the ultimate way to socialize. No matter that he lived in a palace, he could still say 'Let's throw something on the grill' and then he would happily turn pieces of meat and vegetables, virtually anything edible, above the coals until he deemed them perfect.

It was absolutely ridiculous of course, and yet, some of my happiest childhood memories were from such occasions. 

"Have you found a place to live yet? In Hosnian, I mean," Temmin said.

I wondered if part of why I liked Temmin was because, in a way, he talked to me almost the same way my dad did, or used to do. As if my life wasn't drastically different from his. Of course, I liked him more because of his inventiveness, his efficiency and loyalty. All the same, none of the things that impressed other people so greatly seemed to matter all that much to him.

"Yeah," I said.

Temmin nodded. 

"That's good," he said.

A shadow fell over me and I looked up.

"Do you want another beer?" 

Jamillia was holding up two bottles, the glass sparkling with condensation.

"Thank you, I'm good," I said.

"Snap?" She held out one of the bottles to him instead.

"Don't mind if I do. Thank you."

She sat down on one of the nearby sun loungers and opened the other bottle for herself.

"I heard the security guys talking," she said. "Apparently a boat has been sighted not far from here. Paparazzi, they think."

"I expect they'll shut that down fast," Temmin said.

"Yeah. They were speculating that they're British. So they might be unfamiliar with the customs here."

"They're not unfamiliar with the customs," I said. "They're hoping to get some pictures anyway and then get away before they're caught."

She turned her gaze to me.

"There's no actual law against it," she said.

"Yes, there is."

"It's an interpretation. A practice."

I looked at her.

"You want to discuss freedom of the media?" I said. "I'm afraid you don't have a solid enough ground to stand on."

"I'm just saying, in some cases it might be considered bullying."

Temmin made a scoffing noise.

"The same principles don't apply to other public figures," Jamillia said. "Other celebrities."

"Other celebrities don't exactly rule the whole Republic, do they?" Temmin said. "And besides, actors and musicians, and whatever, choose their professions."

"I still think it's a worthy debate."

"No, it isn't," I said.

She didn't say anything more on the subject. 

The boat moved that evening, to some other coordinates. That didn't stop Finn and Rose from getting it on.

**

Two nights later they were at it again. They had been quiet the night before, for which I was grateful. I didn't need to be reminded of what I didn't have, and of all the sex I wasn't getting.

I was in Armitage's room when they started, we were talking about his dad's policies regarding military exercises and Armitage's almost exclusively opposite opinions. 

"Jesus Christ,” Armitage exclaimed, “do they not realize that we can hear them?"

"Maybe they don't care."

It was embarrassing, sitting there in the same room as him, hearing the things we were hearing. 

"Let’s have a cigarette," I said.

"Yes. It's impossible to concentrate in here."

The deck was deserted and the ocean and the sky blended into a perfect blackness. Aside from the soft rippling of tiny waves, it was quiet. 

We leaned against the railing, even though it was too dark to see much further than a few feet beyond the side of the boat. 

My thoughts drifted, to the couple downstairs, to the man standing next to me, to everything in between. 

“I know I’m ugly…” I began. But people still wanted ugly people, sometimes. 

“You’re not ugly,” Armitage said and rather than sounding appeasing, his tone of voice suggested he thought I was being mildly irksome. Which, I realized, was actually better. “And you forget,” he went on, “I’ve seen you without a shirt about half a dozen times by now, and you really are very fit.”

It was quiet for a few seconds. I turned my head and looked at him. He hadn't shaved in a few days, not since we got here, and red stubble covered his jaw and cheeks. Maybe it was a being on holiday thing for him. I liked it.

He straightened from the railing and turned to me, then he leaned forward and kissed me. I returned the kiss and after just a moment we were past that invisible hurdle, the one that stated this was a required kiss, not a spontaneous one. 

The cigarette filter was starting to feel warm against my fingers and I paused long enough to pluck Armitage’s cigarette from his hand as well, and then I threw both burnt down butts overboard.

“That’s littering!” he protested. 

I kissed him again. The smell of his skin filled my nose, and his hand was in my hair, the other one clutching my shoulder. I had my arms around him and I liked the feeling of his warm, hard body under my hands. 

His mouth was stealing my breath, but I didn’t want to stop. I was hard, my erection throbbing against the confines of my pants, and part of me wanted to grab his hips, his ass, and pull him tighter to me, but I didn’t want to move too fast. 

But then he pressed his groin against mine and I could feel the hard length of his penis through our clothes.

“Still think you’re ugly?” he said, his lips leaving mine for no more than a second.

I didn’t care that I was ugly. I ground my hips against his and he made an almost hissing sound. 

Maybe we would have gotten further. I had this idea in the back of my head that I wanted to blow him. But we were interrupted by a noise. I turned my head and saw two security guards a little further down the deck. They were making their rounds.

“Shit,” Armitage said.

The two guards were very pointedly not looking in our direction, but there was no doubt they had seen us. 

We made our way back down to the cabins. I didn’t really care that the guards had seen us, we were still fully clothed and nothing too obscene had been going on, but it seemed to bother Armitage. I had hoped we might pick up where we left off, but it was clear he was no longer in the mood.

“I have to get some work done,” he said.

It was a very thin excuse, but I let him have it. 

“Okay,” I said. “See you tomorrow.”

He nodded. On an impulse, because it felt wrong to just leave things like that, I inclined my head and placed a soft kiss on the corner of his mouth. It was somewhere in between a kiss on the cheek and a kiss on the lips.

“Goodnight,” I said.

“Goodnight.”

I returned to my room. It was quiet across the hall now. I thought about Armitage, about kissing him and his erection pressing against me. I felt… relief? It was almost a feeling of ebullient hope, discovering that the spark of attraction was there. 

I couldn’t clearly picture the life ahead of us, it was still too vague a concept, but maybe something along the lines of working together to make Alderaan and Arkanis stronger during the day, and romping in bed at night? It was a simplistic image, maybe even childish, but it was what I wanted. I wanted it all.


	10. Chapter 10

The next evening when everyone had retired for the night, except for me and Armitage, and Finn and Rose, I finally got to see Armitage in a pair of swimming shorts. It was Finn’s suggestion to sit in the jacuzzi and I expected Armitage to politely decline, but he didn’t. 

My curiosity, doubled since our make-out session last night, made it hard not to stare. He was pale and slim, there was hardly an ounce of fat on his body, and his chest was smooth. I wondered what his skin would feel like under my tongue, then abruptly stopped that train of thought. I was already in the water, but the idea of sitting there with an erection was disturbing. 

Above us the sky was speckled with stars. Armitage sat down next to me, not so close that we were touching, but close enough for me to feel very aware of his nearness. I could feel my penis begin to swell and tried to will it away. 

The conversation turned to the Republic and even though this setting was about as informal as it could get, I was still thrilled to discover that Finn and Rose shared many of the same ideas that Armitage and I had.

The idea of a future alliance, between all five of our nations, was tossed out in an almost playful way. An ideal, a force to be reckoned with, an almost unattainable notion of stability and possibilities, but not entirely unachievable, and the conversation soon went there. What it would take. An alliance by marriage. 

“That’s a conceivable outcome,” Armitage said. 

Something inside me rankled at his words. He was pimping out a child we didn’t even have yet. Willing to do what had been done to us like it was nothing.

“This feels wrong to talk about,” Rose said.

Finn turned to her. “I know,” he said. “But this is the world we live in.”

I didn’t say anything and pushed down my own feelings. I knew how the world worked too. No matter how much we pushed for unity, the Republic was made up of too many small nations and the only practicable way to hold it together, in the long run, was to merge those fractions into bigger components. 

In the distant future, probably beyond my lifespan, the Republic might become superfluous and the continent would be divided between five or six larger nations. That was the long game. The one we were, in a way, bargaining our lives and the lives of our children in pursuit of. 

I knew all that and still, when we were alone in our rooms later, I turned on Armitage.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

He raised his eyebrows in a look of mild surprise.

“You sit there and sell whatever future kid we might have?”

“We were just talking. No promises were made. Anyway, it will take a lot more time and work to formalize anything.”

“That’s not the point! Do you really want to do… this, to someone else?!”

He looked at me and his lips twisted.

“You weren’t complaining last night,” he said.

It felt like a punch to the gut. 

“Fuck you!”

I turned on my heels and went into my room, slamming the door behind me. I hoped he would choke on his own ambition. 

Who the fuck was he anyway, nothing but the son of a pathetic brute whom nobody liked and was only respected because his family had somehow managed to wrestle control of the country from the aristocracy. I was of royal blood. Two royal bloodlines, actually, since my mother’s birth-mother had once been the elected Queen of Naboo. Fuck him! 

I was awoken the next morning by a knock on the door. I knew it was morning because the sun was shining outside. 

“Ben?”

Judging by the clarity of his voice, he must have opened the door, uninvited.

“Go away.”

There was silence for a moment, and then:

“We need to talk.”

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

I was facing away from him, but I could feel his presence in the room, it was prickling at my neck. I threw a pillow at him, or in his general direction, I didn’t know if I hit him or not.

“Now you’re being childish,” he said. 

I stared at the wall, thinking about ways to get rid of him. Murder was an option.

“I’m sorry I upset you,” he said, “but you have to be realistic.”

His apology skills were appalling. 

I glanced over my shoulder. He was fully dressed, impeccable, although he still hadn’t shaved.

“The future we want, for our countries and the Republic, this is what it rests upon,” he said.

“You don’t have to be a callous dick about it.”

I wasn’t sure what I felt hurt about anymore, the insensitive way he’d spoken about the future of our children, or his jab about our make-out session. I’d thought he’d liked it as much as I had. Now I wasn’t so sure. 

“That was not my intention,” he said. 

Right. 

“Look,” I said and turned around. I sat up. “I know all of this. If not Kef Bir and Hayes Minor, it’ll be Drahgor III, or Eriadu, or Batuu, or some other country.”

“God, not Batuu, it’s practically a glorified hamlet.”

“Not the point.”

We stared at each other in silence for a few seconds.

“If you already know it, why are you throwing a fit over it?” he said then.

“Is this easy for you? Because it’s not that fucking easy for me!”

His gaze turned to the floor for a moment. His expression was blank, like he was making a conscious effort to control it.

“It’s not easy,” he finally conceded. 

I pulled my fingers through my hair and rested my forehead against the heels of my hands. The silence felt potent, thick and oppressing. I looked out the window. It was a bright day out there, but in here…

“What do you want?” he said eventually.

“I don’t know.”

“Because short of relinquishing your title and your claim to the throne…”

“I know!”

Fuck! 

I took a deep breath, then I turned my head and looked at him. He hadn’t moved from his spot on the floor. He met my gaze. 

Then his eyes slid down my chest. I was naked, but still covered from the waist down by the sheet. My skin prickled, but in a different way from before.

With everything up in the air and all those conflicting emotions, I shouldn’t have felt desire, but I did. He was fucking hot, just standing there, watching me. My dick began to swell and the fact that he could see it, under the thin sheet, was both mortifying and arousing like hell. 

After what felt like a long, stretched out moment, he approached the bed. 

“Is that offer of a blow-job still on the table?” he said.

I glanced up at him. 

“Maybe.”

This was a little fucked up, but also very sexy. 

I reached for his pants and undid his belt, then his fly. Then I got up, aware of my nakedness in contrast to him still fully clothed, but I pushed down his pants and nudged him to take a seat on the bed, which he did. I knelt on the floor and slid my hands across his thighs. His penis was not hard, but not completely soft either. I found myself oddly fascinated by the bush of red pubic hair. I’d never had sex with a redhead before. 

I raised my gaze to his face. 

“Lean back,” I said, pushing lightly at his chest.

“I’m fine like this.”

I frowned a little at him. “You wanna watch? You can do that resting on your elbows.”

He leaned back on his elbows then. Anticipation and arousal coursed through me, gathering in my groin. I wrapped my hand around him, within second he was fully erect, and I leaned down and took him into my mouth. 

The taut skin was hot and salty against my tongue. I took my time, using every trick I had, wanting to make it as good as humanly possible, and even though he was silent, I heard his breath hitch and stutter. I was cupping his balls in my free hand and I swallowed as much of his hard length as I could, then used my tongue and lips, switching it around to surprise him. I felt the minute rocking of his hips, but he restrained himself from fucking into my mouth. 

And then he grabbed the back of my head when he came. The bitter taste of his cum exploded on my tongue. I hadn’t planned to pull off, but that was fucking bad manners!

I jerked my head away.

“What the hell?” I said. I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand. 

He looked at me through half-lidded eyes. His chest was still rising and falling a little quicker than normal. He did not look repentant. 

“Were you planning to spit?” he said.

Jesus Christ. 

I felt weird. On the one hand I felt a bit violated, on the other I didn’t actually care that he’d come in my mouth.

“You’re disturbed,” I said. 

That statement did not seem to bother him much.

“I’m gonna come on you,” I said.

“No.”

I climbed onto the bed. He tried to get away, but I was bigger and stronger.

He was squirming underneath me. “Don’t you fucking dare!” 

It occurred to me then that I didn’t know him well enough to play this game. Was it a game? I was a little pissed off with him. Either way, this was slipping into territory I did not feel comfortable with. 

I stopped and moved off him. I rolled onto my back. For a few breaths everything was quiet, then he gripped my still hard penis and I startled from the sudden contact. 

He jerked me off with sure, hard strokes and my breathing sped up. Fuck, that felt good. After a while I glanced down and watched his pale fingers wrapped around my erection. 

“Ah, fuck.. Fuck…” I groaned and came. 

He let go right away and got up. I heard him head into the bathroom. 

When he came out again I had pushed myself into a sitting position and had wiped myself off. I looked at him. I wasn’t entirely sure what had just transpired, apart from the fact that we’d had sex. 

“Want some breakfast?” he said.

“Yeah.”

I rose to my feet.

“I’m just gonna take a shower.”

“Okay.”


	11. Chapter 11

We flew home later that day. There was a matrix of reasons, such as not overstaying your welcome, but also how long you could stand being on a boat surrounded by the same people drinking Margaritas all day long. 

Armitage was absorbed in his tablet during the flight and it wasn’t as if I didn’t have an overflowing inbox, so I used the time to catch up on work as well. 

With D’Acy on vacation no one was screening my emails, so it was a mess, but I started reading through them anyway. Then I came upon one that didn’t make any sense. It seemed as if I was missing part of a conversation. I scrolled down, but didn’t find anything that seemed to be in connection with this. 

Sometimes people emailed D’Acy directly. Maybe they found that more efficient. She had access to my emails and my calendar, but now I wondered if I had access to hers; I had never checked. A couple of taps on the screen and I found that I did.

She had a massive amounts of folders, far more than I had, all of them neatly labeled things like ‘Palace - Staff’, ‘Court - Memos’ and so on, and then a long list of folders named ‘P.B.- Office’, ‘P.B. - Apartment’, ‘P.B. - Shopping’, et cetera. It wasn’t very hard to figure out who ‘P.B.’ was in this context. There was one labeled ‘P.B. - Wedding’ and I tapped on that one. In it were emails from the tailor who was doing my suit and correspondence with the staff responsible for everything from flower arrangements to security.

‘Peavey’, that was Armitage’s P.A., had his own folder and I opened it, morbidly curious about what they might be saying about us, but it was only dry, professional missives about syncing our schedules and things like that, some wedding related stuff that hadn’t found their way to the other folder.

I was going to look for the email I was actually after, when my gaze caught on a folder called ‘Personal’. I was not going to look at that. It would be an invasion of privacy. The mere existence of that folder suggested D’Acy wasn’t aware I had access to her emails. 

Then I opened it anyway. None of the messages were unread, so my presence would go unnoticed. The majority of them were from someone named Wrobie Tyce and her email address told me she was in the Air Force. D’Acy’s wife. 

I knew it was wrong, but for reasons I couldn’t even explain, I looked at them anyway. There were a few back and forths about buying milk and things along those lines, but the most recent ones were mainly about one topic. Hosnian. 

There were practicalities, such as links to available apartments, but through it all ran what was clearly an ongoing argument about the move. No expletives, no lengthy discussions, but the discord was obvious. 

‘There are other jobs. I’d even say better ones.’

_‘I’m sending you a link to an airfield in Hosnian, they’re looking for experienced instructors. Could you please take a look, at least?’_

‘The apartment looks great, if I had ever expressed a wish to move to Hosnian, which I haven’t. You can’t expect me to just drop everything and move. There has to be another way.’

_‘It might just be for a few years.’_

‘Larma, a few years is a long time, no matter what solution we come up with.’

_‘Mentioning kids in this discussion feels like blackmail to me. I don’t see how it has anything to do with it. I don’t have time for this right now, we’ll talk about it at home.’_

‘I do want to make it work! I love you!’

I closed the app. I felt kind of shitty about having read something that was so clearly personal and definitely not meant for my eyes. 

It also hadn’t occurred to me that my move to Hosnian, my getting married and all of it, would affect anyone else. Politically, yes, and one could argue that political decisions always ended up being personal for those affected by them, but I hadn’t thought about it having such direct consequences for anyone other than me. 

I stared out the small, circular window. What if D’Acy quit? The thought made me feel something almost akin to panic. She’d been my P.A. for ten years. She knew everything about me, far more than I cared to think about. 

She knew what I looked like waking up in the morning. She knew my shoe size. She knew my my goal regarding how many, or rather how few, cigarettes I was trying to smoke in a day. She knew which people’s phone calls she should divert as often as possible. She knew what condoms I prefered, because she bought them. 

The idea of hiring a new P.A. was about far more than just teaching them the things they needed to know, it was about letting anyone else get that close. 

I could give her a raise. I could buy her a fucking house in Hosnian. I could increase her Christmas bonus. But if it came down to it, she wasn’t going to choose me above her wife. 

“What’s the matter with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I shot Armitage a glance. “Nothing.”

**

I decided I was going to be nicer to D’Acy. Not call her in the middle of the night and ask about things that could wait until morning. Not send her out to get a coffee from Doodnik’s Café, knowing full well that it took a disproportionate amount of time out of her day. Not ask her to stand outside in the rain with me so I could smoke while she talked. Not lose my temper.

I failed after only a few days. 

“What the fuck is this? D’Acy!”

The dining table, which I used as an extra desk since there were books and papers all over the one in my study, was covered with row upon row of plates.

D’Acy came into the room.

“It’s cake, Sir,” she said. 

“What is it doing here?”

It looked like someone was having a demented tea party. And I had work to do.

“It’s for the wedding, so you can try them and see which one you want.”

“I don’t want any fucking cake.”

“They’ve been sent here from Arkanis…”

“That is insane. No one cares that much about cake!”

“I’ll get them cleared away, Sir.”

She disappeared, no doubt to arrange that. I looked at the plates and the different colored slices. 

“Send them to Armitage!” I yelled.

Maybe I should come on one of them first. 

D’Acy returned. She took two of the plates, one in each hand, and shortly thereafter a servant showed up with a trolley and loaded the remaining ones onto it. 

“Do you need anything else?” D’Acy asked as I sat down by the table.

“No, thank you.”

While I worked I could hear her move around the apartment. Putting away the dry cleaning, maybe, or taking inventory to see what I was almost out of. 

Then there was a knock on the doorframe.

“This just arrived for you.” She handed me a dark gray box. 

“From whom?” I asked. 

“There’s no card, but it was delivered by one of the palace guards.”

I eased the lid open and D’Acy stepped out again. 

It was a watch. The same watch Armitage had. I smiled a little and then I took off the one I was wearing and put the new one on instead. It really was a nice watch. And a nice gesture. To be honest I was a little surprised he remembered that conversation. 

So, I guessed I had to buy him a pair of jeans. I opened a new tab on my computer. If I got him a black pair he might actually wear them, it would be less obvious than blue jeans. He would look great in jeans. 

“D’Acy?”

She showed up in the doorway again.

“Yes?”

“What size of jeans would you say Armitage wears?”

“I’m not quite sure. I can find out.”

“Do that, and then buy these.”

I turned my laptop so she could see the screen. 

“All right. Do you want them sent directly to him?”

I nodded. 

“A card?” she asked.

“No.”

“All right.”

“Tell me when it’s done.”

“Yes, Sir.”

**

D’Acy was efficient and someone had told me that when an order for something came from the palace, it was taken cared of double time, so Armitage’s jeans were delivered the very next day.

He wasn’t wearing them when I arrived at his apartment, though. His computer was open on the table near the windows, a pile of papers next to it. 

“Busy?” I asked. 

“I can take a break.”

“Thank you for the watch.”

“Thank you for the jeans.”

“Have you tried them on?” 

He smiled a little. It could mean yes as much as no. 

He preceded me into the room and gestured for me to take a seat on the couch. He walked over to the computer, tapped a few keys and then came to sit on the couch next to me, a few feet between us.

It was almost difficult to grasp that we'd had sex. He looked so utterly composed in his immaculate clothes. I'd had his dick in my mouth. And now we were sitting here. Maybe it was just me who found that weird. My previous experiences of seeing someone I'd had sex with again, afterwards, included three people.

One was Carise, one was Patric, the boyfriend I'd had for a period of time that could only just qualify as a relationship. And the third one was Orson. I had been madly in love with him, but he did not feel the same about me. Not that it mattered, nothing could have come of it. But I did suck him off, twice.

I looked at Armitage and wondered if we were going to have sex again, and if so when.

"She'll arrive next Tuesday," Armitage said.

"What?"

"Have you listened to a word of what I've said?"

"No."

He gave me a look that was probably supposed to be patient.

"My friend Phasma," he said, "she's coming to visit."

"Great."

I stretched my legs out in front of me.

"What does she do?" I asked.

"Do?"

"For a living, or a job?"

"Oh, she married someone rich and then he died."

I smiled. "Really?"

"Yes, really."

"What did he die of?"

"Old age."

I reached for the remote control to the TV. 

"Wanna watch a movie?" I asked.

"I have work to do."

"Okay, you can work and I can watch a movie."

I turned on the TV.

"Here?" he said. "You'll disturb my concentration."

"So watch it with me. Here." I tossed him the remote. "You pick something."

He relented and we watched a movie. About fifteen minutes into it his phone buzzed. I saw him typing out of the corner of my eye, but I didn't comment.

"Ben?" he said all of a sudden.

I turned my head and he snapped a photo.

"What did you do that for? Give it here."

"I'm not going to…"

I made a grab for his phone, but he jerked it out of reach.

"Would you calm down?" he said.

"Why did you take a photo?" I asked, but I stopped trying to take the phone from him like a madman. 

"I'm not going to post it on the Internet," he said. "Phasma asked me to take a photo…"

"Do not send that to her!"

"I'm not going to…"

"Then why did you take it?"

"... unless you're okay with it."

"I'm not."

"It's a good picture. Look."

He showed me. I shook my head at the sight of my own face. Jesus fuck. It was all nose.

"She can google me," I said.

"Official photos are not the same. Her words."

I really didn't want him to send that picture to her. And at the same time, it felt sort of like the kind of thing two people in a regular, budding relationship would do. Show a picture to their friend. 

"She's just being daft. I won't send it," he said at the same time as I said:

"Okay, you can send it."

We looked at each other. I thought he looked a tad embarrassed, like he regretted getting dragged in to this.

"All right, I'll send it," he said and it was kind of annoying how he made it sound as if I had been begging him to do it.

"She better not show that to anyone, or post it somewhere, or I'm gonna have her hunted down."

"Don't worry, she won't."

"And I want to see a picture of her."

The movie was mostly action, with a very thin plot, so it didn't matter much that I had missed some of it. This time when Armitage's phone buzzed however, it couldn't hold my interest at all and I looked at him.

"She says you look nice."

He was obviously lying.

"No, she didn't. What did she really say?"

His cheeks turned ever so slightly pink.

"I'd rather not say."

"For fuck's sake, what did she say?"

What had she said? 

"She's joking."

"Armitage…"

"She says you look like a big bear."

I gaped at him. He winced.

"She knows perfectly well that's a colloquialism," he said. His phone buzzed again in his hand.

I had expected something much worse. It was a joke and I could take that. I didn't look like a bear, of any kind. I was pretty big, but other than that, not really the type.

"Here's a picture of her," he said and his tone of voice indicated he'd lost all enthusiasm for this whole thing.

He held his phone so I could see. The picture was a selfie of a woman, her hair was tied back from her face with a scarf, and she was wearing quite a lot of makeup. Despite that, or maybe because of it, she was beautiful. 

"How old is she?" I asked, because it was honestly all but impossible to tell from the photo.

"Thirty-five."

We watched the rest of the movie and when I got back to my own place, I googled Phasma. I had never heard of her before Armitage mentioned her, and considering he was one of the most powerful men in Arkanis, and she seemed to be his best friend, I couldn't help but to think I should have heard of her.

The first thing I found out was that her last name was actually Hux. A little digging turned up that the old guy she'd married was a distant relation to Armitage. I was a bit put out he hadn't mentioned that. It seemed like kind of a big thing to leave out.

There were a few photos of her from various galas, she was mentioned as a patron of the Museum of Abstract Ingenuity, but on the whole she seemed to keep a very low profile. That wasn't particularly unusual. Most people I knew valued their privacy.

I picked up my phone. Temmin answered after the third ring. 

"Still in the office?" I asked.

"Yes, Sir. Working late."

"Can you find anything on a Phasma Hux?"

"Let me check."

I could hear the faint clicks of a keyboard in the background.

"Okay," he said after a moment. "There's not much. Born in Arkanis. Maiden name, Parnassos. Widow. She owns a property in Arkanis…" More clicking keys. "Make that two properties. No criminal record. An art degree from Vensenor University. No employment."

"Parents?"

"Dead. She had a brother, he passed away eighteen years ago. That's it. Do you want me to keep digging?"

"No. Thanks. Keep this to yourself."

"Of course, Sir."

"Have a good night."

"You too."

I was overreacting and I knew exactly why. There was absolutely no one in my life who would ask me for a picture of Armitage. And certainly no one who would then proceed by saying he looked like a queen or something of the like. I wanted to know who she was. Well, I would be meeting her soon.


	12. Chapter 12

“Your Royal Highness.”

Phasma’s curtsy was flawless, one foot placed significantly behind the other.

“Call me Ben,” I said.

I held out my hand and she rose again and shook it. She was tall. Really tall. She was probably around my height, but since she was wearing heels I actually had to look up at her. My neck felt unaccustomed to bending that way. 

“It’s so good to finally meet you,” she said.

“You too.”

Her hair was bobbed and raven black, but I very much doubted that was her real hair color. Her face was heavily made up and it was expertly done, which reminded me of Carise, but Phasma’s make up had a more dramatic flair. 

“Now, I have to ask,” she said, “is there anywhere around here where I can smoke?”

We headed to the nearest courtyard. I didn’t have my cigarettes, but Armitage gave me one of his. Phasma had a cigarette holder. 

“Classy,” I said and I meant it; not a lot of people could pull that off without looking like an idiot. 

She smiled. Her fingernails were painted a red so deep they were almost black. 

“You’re even bigger than I thought you would be,” she said. “Marvelous.”

I didn’t know what to say. 

“Ignore her,” Armitage said.

“Absolutely not,” she said and then she turned to me again.

Once I got over how direct she was, I kind of liked her. She was not rude, in fact she was very correct, just outspoken. Her accent was fake, though. It took me a while to pick it up. We headed to the billiard room and played and talked and at first she appeared to sound like any other posh Arkanisian, like Armitage. But I had a bit of an ear for accents, and hers was definitely fake, albeit very well executed, her slip-ups were minute. 

“Damn,” she said when I scored another point.

She did not like to lose, which made three of us in the room. 

“Should we go to a club?” she said. 

She looked at Armitage and then at me. I shrugged.

“Sure,” I said.

“Any good places in particular? Just to be clear, I’m talking about gay bars. I’m not interested in anything other than a few drinks and dancing, personally.”

“I don’t want to go to a club,” Armitage said.

“Why not?” Phasma said. “It will be fun.” She turned to me. “You’re with me, right?”

I looked at Armitage. 

“No,” he said. “We can have drinks here, and if you’re so desperate to dance you can do that here as well.”

He directed that last part at Phasma. 

“I want to experience Aldera by night,” she said. “Ben, what place would you recommend?”

I had never actually been to a gay bar in Aldera. I was too easily recognized here and the minute I came out as gay to the public, I was officially in the market for a suitable husband. But I still knew about a few places. 

“You two go, if you’re so bloody in agreement,” Armitage said.

I hadn’t even said anything.

“Oh, my goodness,” Phasma said, “you sound as if we’re suggesting traipsing into a volcano. What dangers could possibly befall you at a gay bar?”

Armitage gave her a mutinous look. 

“We don’t have to go out,” I said, because I had no desire to argue about it and besides, I felt like I should take Armitage’s side. 

He sighed.

“If you both want to go, we can go,” he said. 

Phasma’s smile widened. She poked him in the arm with a finger.

“Wear the jeans,” she said.

He had told her about that?

“I have to change,” she said. “When I’m ready I’ll meet you boys… where?”

“The garage,” I said. “Armitage…”

“Yes, I’ll pick you up on the way,” he said to her.

“Excellent. See you in a bit.”

She left the room. 

“I don’t like bars,” Armitage said after a second. “And I don’t dance.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I better go and get ready.”

I went after him and caught his arm. 

“Is everything all right?” I asked. 

I felt almost as if I was missing something. 

“Yes,” he said, turning to face me. “I had just forgotten what a pain in the ass she can be.”

I smiled a little. 

“I like her,” I said.

“Of course you do, she’s kissing your ass.” Then he sighed. “I’m glad you like her.”

“So, her name is Hux. Are you two related?”

A small smile tugged at his lips. “Christ, you’re a bad liar.”

“She told me.”

“When I was in the bathroom? No, she didn’t. You did a background check on her.”

Shit. 

“So you already know, the guy she married was a relative of mine. Did you find out anything else of interest?”

“No,” I reluctantly admitted, and since he’d already seen through me, I added: “Her accent is fake.”

“Hm. Well, she sounded like she was born in the gutter when we first met. She’s doing a pretty good job, I would say.”

He looked at me and narrowed his eyes.

“Are you jealous?”

“No.”

I wasn’t, but I didn’t want to admit I didn’t have any friends like that. I could have a beer with Temmin and a few other people once in a while and I socialized with people I was supposed to socialize with. But having watched the two of them together, and even before that, when she was nothing but a texting stranger, it was obvious they knew each other really well. He’d even told her about the jeans. 

Hell, maybe I was jealous, but not in the way he meant it. 

“I’m not jealous,” I said. 

“Good.”

Going out in public meant bringing security. Armitage and I going out together meant double security, and then some. But they were discreet. A bunch of people wearing black suits in a nightclub would only have drawn more attention to the fact that there were people there who needed security guards.

Rey was bobbing slightly on the dance floor, wearing jeans and a top that showed her midriff. Cardinal was hovering nearby the booth where Armitage was sitting. But we were still recognized, I could feel people looking, but the few who raised a cellphone to snap a picture were swiftly discouraged by one of the guards spread out around us, blending into the crowd.

Armitage had stayed true to his word that he didn’t dance, but he was wearing the jeans I’d bought for him and they hugged his legs and his ass in a way that was downright appetizing. Phasma had put on a sequined dress that would have looked tacky on another woman, but she wore it well. She was moving in time with the music and the colored lights above were reflected by her silvery dress.

I wasn’t great at dancing. I managed to not look like an idiot, I hoped, by keeping it somewhat low-key. 

Phasma leaned close to my ear.

“I was mistaken for a drag queen in the bathroom,” she said, loudly to make herself heard over the music.

She looked delighted by this fact. 

I could sort of see why, due to her height, but also the heavy makeup. I smiled and leaned closer to her.

“Congratulations, you’re royalty.”

She laughed. 

A while later we returned to the booth. It was a semi-circle made up of a high-backed sofa and while not exactly hidden from view, the shadows were deep enough to offer some small sense of privacy. The fact that the club was packed actually helped. I slid in next to Armitage and Phasma sat down across the table. 

I took a swig from my beer bottle.

“Careful,” Phasma said, after she had taken a sip of her own drink. “He could have spiked it. Looks a bit shifty.”

She stroked her chin in a meaningful gesture. I turned my head to look at Armitage. He still hadn’t shaved. So apparently it was not a holiday thing. Unlike me, he had great beard growth. 

“It suits you,” I said to him. 

He smiled a little. 

We ordered more drinks and Phasma had this app on her phone, a stupid game, but it was funny, most likely because we weren’t entirely sober. And then at some point I put my hand on Armitage’s leg, also because I wasn’t sober, and he jerked as if I’d stung him. 

I pulled my hand away, trying not to feel hurt, but I did. I knew what he’d said about public displays of affections, I knew he wasn’t my boyfriend, but still. I was fairly certain Phasma noticed, Armitage’s reaction at least was very noticeable, but she pretended like she hadn’t seen. 

When we decided to call it a night we were ushered out through a back door and into the car by the guards. Apparently word had spread about us being here and there was a crowd in the street in front of the club. 

My head was swimming a bit when I went to bed. I made a half-hearted attempt to jerk off, but gave up on it. 

I met Armitage the next day before a meeting. 

“How’s your head?” I asked.

“It’s fine. How is yours?”

“Okay. What’s Phasma doing today?”

“No idea. Perhaps she’s getting her brain dyed.”

Even though I had noticed yesterday that he seemed to have no problem talking about her in derogatory terms, there was a slight edge to his voice. Maybe having a best friend was more complicated than I thought. 

“Do you want to have dinner tonight?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure.”

He showed up alone to dinner that evening. I didn’t ask where Phasma was. We ate and talked about nothing remarkable and then we talked a bit about the house in Hosnian. That subject had quickly become routine because we got regular updates from the interior decorators on things we had to make decisions about. Luckily we had similar taste, so there hadn’t been many discussions.

I wondered if it was just me who wanted to have sex again. 

I looked at him across the table. 

"Do you feel like watching a movie?" he said. 

"Yeah."

We didn't have sex, but we made out a bit on my couch. It was nice. It felt good. He felt good.

Phasma resurfaced the next day and then we spent quite a lot of time together all three of us. We visited the Cloudshape Falls and made a trip to some of Alderaan's most famous vineyards. Phasma declared it was the best wine she'd ever had and I had now ruined all other wine for her forever. We played sabacc in one of the old smoking rooms, where smoking was sadly no longer allowed. I won, to both Armitage's and Phasma's chagrin. 

And then, on our way to the billiard room one afternoon, we ran into my parents. 

Phasma once again executed her perfect curtsy, holding it for quite a while, without wobbling. And because she did that, before I'd had a chance to make a less formal introduction, Armitage and I had to bow, because this was the Queen and such was tradition.

"Your Majesty," Phasma said.

"I don't believe we've met," Mom said, holding out her hand. 

"Phasma Hux."

"Oh, you're family of Armitage's?"

"Yes, by marriage."

Phasma turned to my dad.

"Captain Solo, it's an honor to meet you," she said.

Dad smiled and gave a casual salute.

"How do you like Alderaan?" Mom asked. "Have you been here before?"

"No, this is my first visit. It's a beautiful country. I knew about your famous wines before, but I must say, seeing some of the vineyards exceeded my expectations."

"Yes, we've got some pretty good wine," Mom said and Phasma laughed. "How long are you staying?"

"I'm leaving tomorrow."

"Well, enjoy the rest of your stay."

"Thank you, Ma'am."

And then we headed in our separate directions. 

“You do a very fine curtsy,” I said to Phasma, smiling a little at her. 

She smiled back. “Thank you. You guys have it a bit easier. Bowing is not as demanding, especially since you’re not even doing it in heels.”

I chuckled. 

“But I suppose there aren’t a lot of people you bow to anyway,” she said to me, with a gesture as if to say ‘You could probably even manage it in heels’. 

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Armitage’s face cloud over.

“Why don’t you tell him how many hours you practiced in your living room,” he said to Phasma.

“I did not!” she said.

“Of course you did.”

“A woman has immanent grace.”

Armitage made a dismissive face. But I took notice of the fact that he didn’t push the argument, not beyond the point of teasing. He knew I knew she did not really come from the upper classes, but he didn’t out her in front of me. I found that loyalty appealing. 

I also knew him well enough by now to know what had most likely aggravated him in the first place. I outranked him. 

I bowed to regents and to blood princes and princesses that were heirs to the throne, if those heirs were older than myself. The blood relation status was a figure of speech though, my own mother for instance was adopted. Heads of state of countries that weren’t monarchies ranked higher than myself, but people didn’t bow to them in general, so I didn’t either. 

Armitage was not royalty and while the rule of Arkanis would pass to him, since his father had appointed him his successor, he was not heir to a throne. Even after we married, when he would be styled Prince, my blood relation and status as Crown Prince, would place me a rung above him in the social hierarchy. 

It didn’t matter. The only times it would have any effect would be on formal occasions, it applied to things such as who entered a room first and so on. Although, I thought, had our situations been reversed, would it have bothered me?


	13. Chapter 13

_Han_

All these wedding preparations are driving me up the wall and I make my escape after yet another meeting. You’d think they were planning to launch a rocket into space, with all the scheduling and arranging and fussing about it.

A wedding should be about two people and in all honesty, no one but those two really need to be there. Like when Leia and I got hitched. Call it an elopement if you want, but it was pretty damn perfect, just the two of us in that little church. Of course, there was all the pomp and circumstance afterwards, there had to be, but that was okay.

The weather is nice as I drive, sunny but not too warm, which reminds me that a large part of the meeting was dedicated to talk about rain. Jesus. Hand out umbrellas and your problem is solved. 

I pull up next to Maz’s car in the parking lot. When I get out I take a deep breath. Sunwarm earth, green leaves and yes, there’s a bit of horse shit in the mix, but that’s part of the package. I squint at the horses grazing nearby. I know each and every one of them. They look good, minding their own business, so I turn towards the stable. 

Maz is standing just outside, coffee cup in hand.

“Hey Maz,” I say.

She peers up at me. “Han.”

“How’s it going?”

She nods a little. 

“How the Falcon?”

“He’s as fine as ever.”

Technically he’s Falcon the… I forget the number. I’ve had plenty of horses, still do, but I always have one named Falcon. I give that name to the special ones, the ones I have a really good feeling about, and they haven’t let me down. 

I head inside and the interior of the stable seems dark at first, a contrast to the bright sunlight outside. Dustmotes swirl in a beam of light from one of the windows and I can hear the soft sounds of horses - deep breaths and the faint rustle of hooves against hay. 

The curious ones stick their heads out to take a peek at me and I say hello, run my hand across velvety noses. 

I feel my smile widen when I reach Falcon. He really is something. Almost perfect proportions and a good temper. I talk a bit to him and look him over, then move on to some of the others that need a bit of attention. 

I’d always pictured Ben would grow up to share my interest in horses. He doesn’t have the build of jockey, but he could have learned how to ride, Leia is quite an adept horse woman, but he never did. 

Of course, I am to blame for that. I used to take him with me and he thought it was fun, he was a kid, he loved the animals, including the cats. Then one time, he was four, going on five, a horse got spooked and bolted. I saw it happening. I saw him standing there, impossibly small and I remember the terror I felt, it chills me to the bone to this day, and I ran, but I was too far away.

Then there was the ambulance ride. His pale face and those wide, dark eyes. My heart in my throat the whole way. The guilt I felt cannot be described, even later, at the hospital, when they told me it was just a broken arm. If it had been something worse I would have… I don’t know what I would have done. Leia was amazingly good about it. It was an accident and he wasn’t seriously injured. 

But he hasn't stepped within thirty feet of a horse after that. 

Me, I have loved horses all my life, ever since my early teens when I got my first job driving cattle. Before that even. They are magnificent creatures, really. They’ll get you from point A to point B if you need them to and if you need a friend they’ll be that too. Most of them are kind, they each have their own personality, but for the most part it’s simple, treat them right and they treat you right in return.

It’s a shame Ben doesn’t have that, like I’ve always had. 

And now he is getting married.

I glance towards the office, consider grabbing myself a cup of coffee and get some paperwork out of the way, but then I decide to get on with the practical work first. 

When I was young, where I grew up, there was this… I guess people saw it as a kind of sport, or entertainment. Queer bashing, we called it. Sometimes it was limited to name-calling, shouting ‘faggot’ and taunts at someone who was believed to be queer, but more often than not it took the form of actual violence.

I never participated. I’ve never beat up anyone who didn’t deserve it. But I never tried to stop it either. I never even spoke up against it. I may have felt pity for the poor fucker who got his shit kicked out of him, but it never occurred to me that I could change anything. Realistically I couldn’t. But now, thinking that it could have been Ben, I feel ashamed. 

I still don’t get it. Why would anyone want to be with a man rather than a woman? Hell, it’s weird enough that women want us. I don’t care what other people do in their bedrooms, to each their own, live and let live, but it is a bit different when it’s your own son. 

How does it even work? I mean, I know how they do it, I don’t need to dwell on that, but how do two guys have a relationship? I can’t picture it. If Ben had had a girlfriend, like when that girl Carise was in the picture, I could relate to that. But now I have no clue. 

I decide I should get started on the paperwork after all and head to the office. It’s a bit of a mess in there, as always. I put on fresh coffee and sit down at the desk. I pull out drawers and pick up papers until I find my reading glasses. 

My cell phone beeps and I take it out of my pocket. It’s from Leia. She has sent me a picture. A selfie. She’s pouting at the camera and she’s used one of those filter things; it gives her long black eyelashes and her mouth looks swollen and sparkly red. One of the girls in the office, an intern or something, showed her how to do it, and now she sends me pictures like these. I haven’t gotten the hang of it myself.

_Looking good there._ I type and press send.

After a little while my phone beeps again.

_I’ll look even better when you get home tonight. Count on it._

I smile. More than thirty years together and my wife is sending me texts like that. That’s not bad. Sure, we’ve had our rough patches, like everybody else, but lately things have been good. _Really_ good.

_Looking forward to it._ I send that text back to her and put my phone back in my pocket. 

Does Ben text like that with Armitage? See, that’s what I can’t imagine, even though it’s supposed to be the same, right? Of course, they didn’t find each other the way Leia and I did. And I’m glad Leia went and rewrote the damn law, so that Ben can marry someone who is right for him. It’s just that all this, him being gay, makes it feel as if he’s drifted even further away, out of my reach. 

I’ve always known he’s going to be king one day and that’s something he shares with Leia. I can never be part of that. And I’m aware I haven’t always been the best dad. I did the best I could with what I had. At least I’ve been an improvement on my own dad, I hope. But I guess maybe I hoped that working in the stable together, sharing the love for horses, that could have been our own thing. But it didn’t work out that way. 

I pick up the paper at the top of the pile in front of me. I hate paperwork.


	14. Chapter 14

I couldn’t tell D’Acy I knew she was thinking about resigning. That would mean exposing where I had gotten that information and that was out of the question. I checked her emails and the folder labeled ‘Personal’ again. After having done it once already, my sense of doing something morally questionable had faded. 

But there were no more emails about the move to Hosnian. D’Acy’s exchanges with her wife were about everyday things and forwarded office jokes and memes. That left me in the dark and I didn’t like it. I made some calls to find out if Wrobie Tyce had handed in her notice to the Air Force. She hadn’t.

I thought about Tyce’s veiled jab about how working for me might not be a dream job. Admittedly, maybe she had a point, but it wasn’t as if being my P.A. didn’t pay well, so fuck her. I wondered what D’Acy might have said about me. Probably not much. Like everyone else working in the palace she had signed a non-disclosure agreement a mile long and I actually trusted her, so I didn’t think she had breached it.

“How long has Peavey worked for you?” I asked.

Armitage looked up from his computer screen. 

“About five years. Why?”

“Just curious.”

He smiled a little and turned back to his laptop. We were sitting on opposite sides of my dining table. There were papers all over it, not cake this time, including a thick dome - a copy of the accords. 

I turned my focus to my own laptop, resting my cheek against my knuckles, but then my gaze drifted to Armitage again. To those impossibly pale eyelashes. To the sculpted lines of his face. To the shape of his mouth. He’d taken his jacket off, but he was wearing a three-piece and the waistcoat outlined the shape of his torso. I looked at his hands. 

“Are you done soon?” I asked.

“How is it that you always end up bothering me when I’m working?”

Always was a great overstatement. I’d done it once, or twice. 

“Don’t you have work to do? What about that trade treaty? We need to finish that.”

“I guess I work faster than you do.”

“No. You’re just lazy.”

“Lazy?”

“Yes, lazy and undisciplined.” 

But there was no conviction behind his words; he wasn’t actually upset. Mildly annoyed, perhaps. 

I stretched my back, then considered going back to work, but no. I got up and rounded the table. I leaned against the edge of it, right next to him. He didn’t stop typing. I bent down, moving into his field of vision.

“Honestly,” he said, “this is juvenile.”

“Come on, you can take a break. Smoke?”

“For your information, I know the number of cigarettes you’re supposed to have in a day and you’ve already exceeded that.”

“You know that number because I told you.”

“Yes, but I’ve kept count for you today, so show a little gratitude.”

I smiled. 

I took his hand and, with some reluctance, he allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. 

“I can show gratitude,” I said.

“This is not what I meant.”

“I know.”

I kissed him. His beard was softer against my face than it had been before. I lost myself in the sensation of his lips against mine. I still felt relief that this worked, that kissing him felt right, but my focus had shifted from the initial awkwardness and towards my feelings of sexual desire for him. 

My mouth opened under his. Our tongues met and the warm wetness of his mouth made sparks of arousal fly through me. I wanted to keep deepening the kiss, crawl inside his skin, but instead I kissed the side of his throat, breathing in the smell of his skin and feeling the fluttering beat of his pulse against my lips. 

I took his wrist and pressed his palm against the rapidly growing bulge in my jeans. Even that blunt contact was enough to make me want to moan. I kissed his mouth again. 

He kept on rubbing me through my pants, but it wasn’t enough, not nearly enough.

“Fuck me,” I said.

“I… All right.”

I smiled. I took his hand, but when I moved towards the door, he didn’t follow.

“What’s wrong with right here?” he said. 

There was nothing wrong with right here, except the bed would be more comfortable, but perhaps also a more boring and obvious choice.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll just get some lube." I paused. "Do you want to use a condom?”

Among the many, many things that had to be agreed upon before we were engaged, he and I both had to provide a clean bill of health, signed by an impartial medical doctor. It was mainly to rule out that either of us had some dreadful genetic defect that would render us insane before the age of forty and things like that, but STDs were also covered. I knew he was clean and he knew the same about me. 

“That won’t be necessary,” he said.

His reply didn’t come as a surprise. He had been very eager to come in my mouth, after all.

I went to my bedroom and grabbed the bottle of lube I kept in my bedside drawer. On my way back I slipped a tie, tied into a loose noose, onto the outside handle of the door to the apartment. I didn’t much fancy the idea of D’Acy walking in on us. 

When I returned to the dining room I kissed him again, mostly for good measure. Eager anticipation was throbbing in the pit of my belly. 

The moment our pants were pushed down, he grabbed me and turned me around, bending me over the table. I heard the snap of the bottle being opened and a moment later I felt his slick fingers between my ass cheeks. He pushed a finger inside, and I shuddered. He added another, stretching me. Oh, that felt good.

He kept the foreplay short, which was fine by me, and his hand was replaced by the head of his cock. He was careful, pushing into me, but not that careful, and the stretch and burn as he slid inside my body made my breath catch in my throat. It was an exquisite intrusion. And then he was fully sheathed, filling me up, his hips flush against my ass. 

I barely had time to breathe before he started thrusting. Jesus… But it felt good. He shifted his feet a little and his cock hit my prostate. Yes! But he changed his position again when he tightened his grip on my hips.

“No, no, no, go back,” I said. 

“What?”

“The angle you had before…”

He didn’t reply, but he changed the angle a little, then a little more; I slid my own feet half an inch to tilt my hips… Oh god… The sound I made was probably more than enough to tell him he’d found it. 

“You feel amazing,” I breathed. 

He moved one hand to my shoulder and pushed me down, pressing me flat against the table and my whole body felt suddenly ablaze, as if it was telling me I liked it, whether a conscious thought on the matter had formed or not. 

His thrusts were hard enough to make me lurch against the table, each stroke of his cock unleashing raw pleasure within me. I was moaning, soft, senseless sounds that left my throat in time with his movements. I realized the accords were right in my line of sight. I fucking loved them. 

“Seems rather unnecessary, doesn’t it?” Armitage said. He sounded out of breath.

“Huh?”

“Two-thousand pages.”

In my mindless state it took me a moment to realize he’d noticed what I was looking at.

“When all they really had to write was that His Royal Highness Prince Ben takes it up the ass,” Armitage said. 

“Ngh-mm…”

“Wouldn’t you agree?” he said. “Say it.”

He was fucked up.

“Yes,” I huffed out.

I couldn’t move my arms, unless I wanted to throw him off and I definitely didn’t want to do that, so I couldn’t reach my cock and it bobbed unattended just beyond the edge of the table. But I could come like this. I wanted to come like this. 

And I wanted it to go on forever. Feeling him moving within me. His hands holding me.

“That’s what you signed, really,” he said, without breaking his rhythm.

How could he talk? I could barely think.

“A blanket authorization for me to fuck you.”

I was so close now. So fucking close.

“To come inside you, whenever I want.”

I was balancing on the edge. 

“Agree or I’ll stop,” Armitage said.

“Yes, yes!”

He drove into me, again, and again. Relentlessly. And I came. A blinding orgasm. The noise I made was probably embarrassing. A moment later he pressed himself tightly against me and I felt him shudder behind me. 

He withdrew right after, leaving a wet feeling behind. I slowly pushed myself up from the table. 

“Bathroom?” he said.

“There’s one by the front door.”

I headed to the bathroom off my bedroom and cleaned myself up. I’d never barebacked before. It was a bit messier. When I was done I brought some tissues back to the dining room. Leaving semen on the floor for the cleaning staff to find was a bit too obscene. 

Speaking of obscene… I felt somewhat embarrassed now, thinking about the things he’d said, and how I had replied. He got off on that? I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about that. But at the same time that was one of the best fucks I’d ever had. 

I threw away the tissues. That rug was mildly gross now. If you knew about it.

Armitage was still in the bathroom. Should I go knock on the door? 

But then he returned, looking as immaculate as ever. There were no signs of the fact that he had fucked my brains out mere minutes ago. 

“Are you all right?” he asked, almost casually. 

“Yeah.”

“Want a cigarette?”

We headed up to the landing. I lit up and took a deep drag. A puff of wind blew my hair into my face and I pulled my free hand through it. The last light of the day was fading, leaving a blue world in its wake. 

When I was a teenager, I had felt locked up in here, in the palace. I supposed that in a way I was. But when you got older you got a bit better at looking beyond yourself and realized that there were those who were far worse off.

Armitage raised his hand to my head all of a sudden. 

“You messed it up,” he said.

I looked at him. I felt his fingers in my hair, lightly moving strands of it. It was the gentlest he’d ever been with me, the softest touch, and I felt something dislodge inside my chest, as if in anticipation of a free fall I was not sure I was prepared for. I swallowed. 

“There,” he said and lowered his arm again.


	15. Chapter 15

We were leaving for Arkanis in the morning and the grand entrance hall looked as if someone was moving out of a four-bedroom apartment. Or at least how I imagined that looked. There were crates, boxes, suitcases, clothes racks. 

Actually, I was moving. After the honeymoon we would go to Hosnian, so I’d had to decide what to bring. But a great deal of the things accumulated in the entrance hall was stuff for the wedding. 

“Let me know if you change your mind about anything, Sir,” D’Acy said. “I’ll have a bit of time tomorrow to pack a few more things.”

“I can always send for them later.”

The palace wasn’t going anywhere. 

Apart from my year abroad, I had never lived anywhere else. I’d lived in different parts of the palace, maybe that counted as moving. 

I turned to D’Acy. “It’s getting late. You can go home.”

She was coming to Hosnian. If she weren't she would have handed in her resignation by now and she hadn't. 

“Thank you, Sir. You have a good evening.”

“You too.”

I was just about to head up the stairs behind me, Armitage appeared to still be busy making sure Peavey had a grasp on everything, when a figure came down the corridor from the east wing. Something shifted inside me, like piano wires being pulled taut, then tauter still. 

My uncle Luke stopped beside a tall crate, looking right at me.

“Get him the fuck out of here!” I roared.

“Ben,” he said.

“Guards!”

There was movement at the edges of the room, but this was the Queen’s brother, the Archbishop of Ahch-To, and the guards stayed back.

I took a few steps towards him.

He was a small man, but like my mother he exuded a quiet authority.

“Have you come to save my soul?” I spat. 

He looked at me with infuriating calmness. 

Growing up I used to spend a lot of time with him. Often it seemed he had more time for me than my own parents. We talked about God and life and death and all those concepts too big or scary for words, but he had the words for them. It seemed a fucking joke now, but I had been a very religious boy. 

And then, when I was in my early teens I told him, just him, because I didn’t dare tell anyone else, that sometimes I thought about boys, about kissing them and other stuff. And he told me that it was wrong. He explained to me how the Sacred Scripture stated very clearly that homosexual acts were acts of grave depravity. But I could be saved, through prayer and by the grace of God. And I believed him. I believed him because he was my uncle, because he wouldn’t lie to me, because he knew a lot more than I did. 

“I have come to implore you,” he said, “not to do this.”

“You don’t have a say in what I do.”

“But God does.”

“Fuck your God!”

“It isn’t too late. You can be forgiven, but if you continue down this path...”

“Get out!” I felt as if my veins were filled with magma, scorching me.

Then Mom emerged from the Mountain Hall at a brisk pace. Someone must have told her what was going on.

“Luke,” she said, “this is neither the time nor the place.”

“It’s not too late,” he said, this time to her. Then he turned to me again. “I can help you.”

“I don’t need your help!”

“God can absolve you, if you confess your sins and repent…”

“I have already told you,” Mom cut him off, “that your interference in this matter is not wanted.”

“You are making a mistake.”

“No. I have made myself clear. And now I’m asking you to leave.”

“It will not be a marriage in the eyes of God, Leia. It is an abomination…”

“I will not repeat myself.”

She held his gaze. 

He sighed, his mouth a grim line, but finally he turned around to leave.

Mom turned her gaze to me and there was something else in her eyes now, sadness maybe, tiredness. She walked up to me.

I realized I was shaking.

“Ben,” she said. 

I felt short of breath. My hands were cold.

“Whatever he says…”

I couldn’t listen to her. My ears were buzzing. I couldn’t stand her looking at me. I turned away and started down the west corridor.

“Ben!” I heard her calling after me.

Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! I wanted out of my own head. I felt as if there was a scream trapped inside my skull.

“Fuuuuck!” I doubled over with the force of the shout. 

Armitage caught up with me halfway down the Marble gallery. He caught my arm but I pulled away. My chest felt too tight. A displaced shame flared up inside me. I was fourteen again and hating myself, scared shitless. 

I turned abruptly to Armitage and put my arms around him. I buried my face in the crook of his neck and after a second I felt his arms come up around me. I felt conscious of my every breath. We stood like that for what felt like a long time. 

Then I took a small step back. I wiped at my eyes. I felt scrubbed raw and exposed. I took a deep breath and then I looked at him. He looked back at me. 

“Better?” he finally asked.

I nodded. 

“He’s nothing,” I said. 

No one. Unimportant. Meaningless. Powerless.

It was quiet for a moment. 

“Fuck, I need a cigarette,” I said then. “Do you have yours on you?”

“Luckily for you, I do.”

I managed a small smile.

**

It rained when we arrived in Arkanis and it was still raining when I stretched out on the bed in the suite I had been given. The walls were white and the carpet and the heavy curtains were a dark blue color.

Vensenor House was a much newer building than the Royal Palace of Alderaan. Neither was it as big, but there was hardly any lack of space. The military rulers of Arkanis had had it built, rather than installing themselves in one of the aristocracy’s leftover mansions. 

Carise and her family lived in an ancestral home in a part of town just a short distance south of here. Her father was one of the most influential ministers in the Arkanis government and the House of Sindian owned some of the nation’s most important industries. 

I found myself thinking about Luke and stopped. 

It was an hour until dinner and I started on The Aldera Post’s crossword puzzle. 

"Sir?"

I opened my eyes, surprised to find myself waking up because I had no recollection of being about to fall asleep.

D'Acy was standing by the foot of the bed.

"Dinner is in half an hour," she said.

"Okay." I sat up and pulled a hand over my face. I felt more tired now than I did before. "Do you have my cigarettes?"

"Yes. But you only have two left of today's ration."

"How is that possible when I was on a plane for hours?"

"I don't know, Sir." 

She took the cigarettes out of her pocket and handed them to me. I rose to my feet and went over to the balcony door. The rain hadn't let up, so I ended up balancing on the threshold.

"Your shirts have been ironed," D'Acy said in the room behind me.

"I'll wear the gray one," I said.

"And a black tie?"

"Yeah."

Dinner that evening felt oddly like a throwback to the first week of my and Armitage's engagement. Me and him, my parents and Brendol Hux seated around the dinner table, making polite smalltalk about things like the food we were eating and Mustafar's unexpected win over Bespin in the Republic Grand Prix.

Armitage spoke about what a wonderful country Alderaan was and all the interesting culture he had experienced during his much appreciated stay. Funnily enough he did not mention the part about sticking his penis up my ass. 

It felt different, sitting across the table from him now than it had during those early days. The setting was the same, it was the same participants, following the same script, but I felt different, as if my body's chemistry had been altered, with the result that I was aware of his presence on a whole other level.

I liked his looks. I liked how he smelled. I liked his sharp mind, how he remembered everything, even the smallest detail. I liked the feeling of his hands on me.

I took another sip of wine. 

"She's just getting her knickers in a twist," Brendol said with a scoff.

What were they talking about?

Mom very pointedly raised an eyebrow. 

"As opposed to the male members of the Akiva delegation who are not bothered by their underwear?" she said.

Brendol laughed, as if it was all in good fun and his initial, sexist comment had also been a joke. God, he was boorish.

When we finally rose from the table there was another few minutes of saying goodnight and then we left the room. I caught up with Armitage outside.

"Wanna do something?" I asked.

'Something' meaning anything from watching a movie, to talking, to having sex. I wanted to have sex with him again. Did he want to?

"I'm rather tired," he said with an apologetic air. "I'm just going to catch up on some work and then I'm going to bed."

"Okay."

I felt an urge to kiss him, so I did. He tensed. I felt it and I pulled back and looked at him. 

He smiled a little and shook his head in a regretful gesture. “Like I said, I’m tired.”

He brushed something from my shoulder and straightened the lapels of my jacket. There was something weirdly domestic, even intimate, about the gesture.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said. 

“Yeah.”

Then he leaned forward and brushed his lips against mine.

"Goodnight," he said then.

"Goodnight."

I returned to my room and opened the balcony door to have a cigarette. This was the last one for today, I decided. 

I was in a funny mood. Maybe it was because I was in an unfamiliar room and on the cusp of a future that, while minutely planned in some respects, felt wholly unknown in others.

**

The next day I met with several high-ranking members of the Arkanis government. The meetings were more or less social calls, but since Arkanis and Alderaan were entering the long process that would lead to the nations one day being united under one rule, it was prudent for us to familiarize ourselves with each other.

I saw neither Armitage nor my parents the whole day and, because of conflicting schedules, I had dinner alone. I worked while I ate. A while later I decided to head to the gym and I was in the process of digging out my workout clothes from the closet when there was a knock on the door.

I dropped my sneakers on the floor and went to open.

Phasma was outside.

She smiled at me. "Hello." 

"Hi."

I stepped to the side to let her in. 

"I heard you had arrived," she said. "And I thought I'd come by to say hello."

"I'm glad you did," I replied and I meant it. I had enjoyed the time she'd spent in Alderaan and her appearance here now felt not too far off from seeing a friend again. "Would you like something to drink?"

"Whiskey, if you have it. Thank you."

There was a table near the window with a few decanters on it. I hadn't inspected them, but I assumed there would be a bottle of whiskey among them. 

Phasma took a seat on one of the sofas.

"How do you find Arkanis?" she asked.

"Rainy."

She laughed. 

"The downpours are limited to two or three times a week," she said. "You can’t possibly have any reason to complain."

I found the whiskey and poured a measure into two glasses. I walked over to the sofas and handed one of the glasses to Phasma.

"Thank you," she said.

I took a seat opposite her.

"Arkanis does top the list of countries where people have the most umbrellas," she said. "An average of 4.2 per person. Even beats Japan."

She smiled.

"I'm astounded," I said dryly.

She laughed. 

She raised her glass. "To umbrellas."

"I'm not drinking to umbrellas."

"No? To vanquishing one's enemies, then."

I smiled and raised my glass. 

It was good whiskey, single malt, Cheedoan if I wasn't mistaken.

We talked for a while, about this and that, and then when we had finished our drinks, Phasma got up to leave. I followed her to the door.

"It was so good to see you again," she said. 

"You too."

She kissed me on the cheek.

"God, you even smell gorgeous."

I huffed out a laugh, both a little embarrassed and pleased by her comment.

"I'll see you on the big day," she said.


	16. Chapter 16

The next morning I got my hair cut. Not too short, but it had gotten a little long even for my standards. Then it was time for the rehearsal of the ceremony and I met up with Armitage in Vensenor House's courtyard. It was a largely utilitarian area, apart from a big, rather tacky, statue in the middle.

The sky was overcast but it had stopped raining half an hour ago.

“Looks good,” Armitage said, nodding at my hair.

“Thanks.”

“You have very thick hair.”

“Yeah.”

The car was parked right in front of us and I gestured to it.

“We haven’t been cleared to leave yet,” he said. “Might as well have a cigarette. Want one?”

I shook my head. He lit one and I very nearly changed my mind, but I was going to stick to my rationing. 

“Can you breathe on me?” I asked.

He laughed. 

“You really are quite pathetic,” he said, but he obliged. 

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Cardinal, a few paces away, watching us. When he saw me looking, he looked away. 

Armitage finished his cigarette, but nobody moved.

“What is the problem?” he exclaimed.

Cardinal took a step towards us.

“I’m very sorry, Sir,” he said. “The problem isn’t here, it’s at the other end…”

“I don’t care about at which end the problem is. Fix it. We don’t have time to stand around here all day.”

“Of course, Sir. Right away, Sir.”

Cardinal stepped away again and talked to someone on his radio. 

“Wanna make out in the backseat while we wait?” I said under my breath.

“Do shut up.”

After a moment Cardinal returned.

“We will be ready to leave momentarily, Sir,” he said. “It appears that since the location is known, there was a media presence outside the church.”

“The media,” Armitage said. “What’s the bloody point of them?”

“I couldn’t say, Sir,” Cardinal said. “Do you wish to wait in the car?”

We got into the car and after a few more minutes of waiting we were en route to the church. 

I looked out at the streets as we drove through the city. When we stopped at a red light a little girl on the sidewalk smiled widely at me. Of course, the windows were tinted, so what she was actually smiling at was her own reflection. It made me smile anyway, because of the utter lack of self-consciousness.

I turned to Armitage. 

"How many kids do you want to have?"

He had been looking out the window on his own side of the car, but now he gave me an almost outraged look.

"Can we not have that discussion now?"

Perhaps it was an odd question to just spring on him like that, but we both knew we had to have at least one. We needed an heir and we had already touched on the subject, when we were on the boat with Finn and Rose. Admittedly with the result that we got into an argument.

"Have you never thought about it?" I asked.

"I am not talking about this now."

I let it drop. The idea of starting a family with him was still very abstract and difficult to picture. But I had on occasion thought about what it would be like to have kids, on a purely theoretical level, and I had always figured I wanted more than one.

Carise and I actually had a conversation about it once. It had been a mostly academic discussion, although at the time we both thought that we would one day get married. She thought one was enough and when I told her I wanted at least two she argued that since I was a man I didn't have to worry about losing my figure, so I should just agree with her. 

Armitage was an only child, just like me. Then again, so was Carise. But Armitage and I were going to adopt and the matter of keeping one's figure didn't enter into the equation anyway. 

I glanced towards the front of the car to get a view of the street ahead, and saw Cardinal's eyes in the rearview mirror. His gaze was fixed on Armitage. I shot Armitage a look; he was staring out the window on his side, seemingly lost in thought. 

I looked back at the mirror again. No change. The realization felt like a door opening in my mind. 

I had registered that Cardinal was most likely gay. I'd been around him often enough to come to that conclusion. But I hadn't thought much about it, not least because I had quite a lot on my mind already, and also, I didn't give a shit. He was a bit of a bootlicker and a complete dullard at that.

And in love with Armitage. That wasn't merely professional admiration and loyalty on his face. It was longing. 

He hadn't noticed that I was watching him, too busy staring at the object of his desire, and I leaned forward a little.

"Rey."

"Sir?"

"Maybe you should drive, Cardinal seems a bit preoccupied."

At the sound of his name, he flinched. Rey shot me a look over her shoulder, then looked at Cardinal, a small frown on her face.

"Is something wrong?" she asked him.

"No."

His eyes had turned straight ahead. 

"Sorry, Sir," he said.

Rey gave me another questioning look. I gave her a small shake of my head. There was nothing she needed to be made aware of.

"Stay alert," she said in a low voice, slightly admonishing, meant for Cardinal.

I saw his grip tighten on the steering wheel.

When I turned my head Armitage was looking at me with a slight frown. Judging by his expression he wondered what that had all been about.

He really didn't know? He saw a lot more of Cardinal than I did. He must have noticed. 

We arrived at the church shortly thereafter and were greeted inside the door by the bishop. Without her clerical vestments she looked remarkably ordinary. Her curly hair was cropped very short and she was wearing orthopedic shoes.

"Your Royal Highness." She curtsied and smiled. "General Hux. Welcome to St. Windu's Cathedral."

It was a beautiful church, eight-hundred years old or so, and perhaps not built exclusively as a testament to the greatness of God, but also of the king who had sponsored it. 

The rehearsal took forever. There could be no faltering on the actual day, the world would be watching, but I got bored by the endless repetitions and the frequent pauses to clear up some minute detail or other. 

Despite all the formality, I felt a flutter of butterfly wings in the pit of my belly. In a couple of days we would be wed, in front of hundreds of people, and even though I had thought about it quite a lot throughout summer, it suddenly felt real in a whole new way. 

I looked at Armitage, who was listening as the Bishop explained something, an attentive look on his face. And I thought of Cardinal’s devotion, so obvious now that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed it earlier.

What did I feel? Was it even possible to fully detangle what I actually felt from what I knew would be a convenient emotional response? He was not the type of man I had imagined I would one day marry. Then again, I had tried very hard not to imagine my future husband at all, knowing full well I wasn't going to be allowed to choose him myself. 

But he was handsome. Self-assured. Intelligent. Driven. A great kisser. I liked spending time with him. I could fall for him. 

He turned his head and looked at me just then. 

"Ben, are you listening?"

"No."

He made an exasperated sound.

"I apologize," he said to the Bishop, clearly on my behalf, then he turned to me again. "Will you pay attention?"

I gave him a look of annoyance. Had I just thought about falling for this guy? 

When the rehearsal was finally over there were a million other things to do and it was late before the day came to an end. I followed Armitage to his rooms. We had decided to watch a movie.

His couch was icy-blue and looked like it was made of Lego. I stretched out on it. It felt like it was made of Lego. I gave him a doubtful look.

“This is not comfortable.”

He looked as if he considered my opinion about his choice of furniture unworthy of a reply. 

“What possessed you to get a couch like this?” I said.

He sighed and rolled his eyes.

“There’s another TV in the bedroom. We can watch the movie there.”

There were no personal effects on display in his bedroom, no discarded clothes or knick-knacks of any kind, but having discussed the house in Hosnian at some length, I recognized his sense of style, a kind of refined starkness, which made the room undoubtedly his.

We took a seat on the bed, side by side. I dug under the tightly secured bedspread until I came up with a pillow, scooted down a bit and stuck it behind my head. 

“Is that a Janyor?” I asked, eyeing the painting that adorned the wall opposite the windows.

“Hm?” Armitage was fiddling with the remote, but looked up and followed my gaze. “Oh. Yes.”

There was a painting of Janyor’s in the palace. His style was abstract and his most famous quote was that art and war were inevitable, forges to temper the soul, and the worst parts of the human soul were required to draw out the best. 

Armitage had that guy’s artwork on his bedroom wall. I found that to be both bizarre and appealing at the same time. 

About ten minutes into the movie he picked up his tablet, but when I glanced over at him I saw that he was paying attention to both screens. The master of multitasking. I felt a small smile tug on my lips.

On the TV screen the main characters were sneaking through the Akivan jungles and then all of a sudden they were in a large city. I must have closed my eyes for a minute. 

“Ben.”

I awoke and someone’s, Armitage’s, hand was on my shoulder. I blinked. The end credits were rolling on the TV. 

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Half past midnight. You fell asleep twenty-five minutes into the movie.”

Was it odd that it felt sort of intimate that he had watched me sleep? My head felt groggy. 

“I can sleep here,” I said.

My suggestion was partly rooted in the fact that the idea of getting up and then walk all the way back to my own room felt like far too much work, but also I wanted to sleep next to him. The suite booked for the honeymoon, we had finally decided on going to Bith, only had one bedroom. I was curious about how it would feel to wake up next to him. Why wait?

He hesitated for a second. “All right,” he said then. “But if you steal the cover I’m kicking you out.”

I smiled. He disappeared into the bathroom and I sat up. I undressed, leaving my clothes in a pile next to the bed, and slipped in between the sheets. 

A short while later I watched as Armitage undressed, more and more pale skin being revealed for each item removed. I was too tired to contemplate doing anything, that was not why I’d wanted to stay, but it was still nice. He lay down next to me, on his stomach, his face turned in my direction. 

“Do you snore?” I asked.

“No.”

I reached out and touched his shoulder, his arm, felt his warm skin against my fingers. And then I drifted off to sleep again.


	17. Chapter 17

I was awoken by Armitage’s mouth on mine. Not just a peck on the lips, he was full on kissing me, and the moment I opened my mouth he stuck his tongue inside. It took my sleep-addled mind a second, but no more than than, to catch on and then I was kissing him back, sliding my tongue against his. 

My morning erection went from half-mast to rock hard in no time. I let my hands roam over his body and felt his hands on my chest, my arms, my back, leaving traces of heat in their wake. I slid my hand down his stomach to his hard penis and stroked him. 

“I’m gonna fuck you,” he said and clashed his mouth against mine. I nodded. After a moment he moved away and I watched him take out a bottle of lube from the bedside table. 

“Turn around,” he said and grabbed my shoulder. 

I rolled onto my stomach. I heard him open the bottle behind me and my anticipation bordered on the verge of impatience. But a moment later it was not, as I had expected, his fingers I felt, but the blunt pressure of his cock. 

“Ah, fuck!” I snarled as he pushed the head inside. "Wait…"

But he didn't wait. He pressed himself in deeper and a groan escaped my throat as he slid, relentlessly, into my body.

"See," he said when he finally bottomed out. "You can take it."

"You fucking asshole," I bit out, but I didn't move. Because despite the burn, or maybe because of it, the feeling of being stretched around him was glorious. 

He pulled out a little and then pushed back in.

"Oh, god…" I groaned.

One of his forearms came to rest across my shoulder blades and his weight pressed me into the mattress as he started moving his hips in earnest, brushing against my prostate with every thrust. 

"We have the state breakfast today," he said after a while. "All the ministers are going to be there. And all the heads of state."

So, talking again.

"Practically all of them have come for the wedding tomorrow," he went on. "This breakfast will be the second most attended event of the year."

"Shut up," I said.

Instead of shutting up he leaned closer to my ear.

"And you're going to sit there with my cum in your ass."

I glanced at him over my shoulder.

"You're sick."

He smiled. 

"You're the one who's going to look them in the face,” he said, without breaking his rhythm, “while still feeling me inside you. What does that make you?"

For a second I wanted to buck and throw him off me. But the vague sense of humiliation that rose inside me only seemed to fuel my arousal. Judging by Armitage's sneer he noticed. 

My erection was trapped between my body and the mattress and the minute friction, created by our bodies moving together, was frustratingly inadequate and at the same time that was its own tantalizing torment. Armitage’s breathing was labored and bespoke how it felt for him, sliding in and out of me, but that didn’t stop him from opening his mouth again a while later.

“Perhaps I should bend you over one of the tables? Let them all see how well you take it.”

I felt the accumulating tension, a building of pressure, spiraling towards the point of no return. And then I was coming, spending myself in bursts. 

I panted as the intense pleasure subsided. He was still pumping into me. Pretty soon it was going to become uncomfortable. But he slowed his pace then, thrusting just a few more times, and then he came.

He pulled out swiftly and the weight and warmth of him against my back disappeared as he got up. 

"The breakfast is in fifteen minutes," he said.

I fumbled for my phone on the bedside table and looked at the clock. Shit! I flew out of bed. Armitage had already disappeared into the bathroom. I started pulling on my clothes, aware of the sticky mess, but I didn't have time to do anything about it. He had done this on purpose. What was wrong with him? Another thought echoed in the aftermath of the first - what was wrong with me?

I pulled my hands through my hair as I left his room and hurried down the corridor. My body still felt loose-limbed from the orgasm, even as I all but ran towards my own room.

About halfway there I came across D'Acy. 

"Pick out something for me to wear," I said.

"I already have."

She fell into step next to me. 

"They're already waiting," she informed me.

I distantly observed that she had correctly guessed where she might find me; she had been on her way to Armitage's room.

As soon as we reached my room, I headed towards the bathroom.

"You're going to be late, Sir," she said.

"No, I won't."

I was going to be late, but I just could not head down there like this. I dropped my clothes on the floor and wiped myself off with a towel, then I returned to the bedroom and started putting on clean clothes. 

My parents were waiting for me in an antechamber to the state dining room when I came downstairs a few minutes later.

"You're late," Mom said.

I didn’t reply, because I couldn’t exactly say I had been busy fucking. Armitage, the asshole, had had a head start, seeing as he'd been in his own room already.

One of the guards nearby spoke into his radio and a moment later I heard the herald's voice from inside the dining room.

"All rise for Her Majesty the Queen of Alderaan."

Mom stepped through the door ahead.

I took a deep breath, trying to compose myself.

"His Royal Highness Prince Ben of Alderaan," came the herald's voice. 

That was my cue. I walked into the dining room. A sea of faces turned in my direction and followed me as I headed towards my seat. Armitage was standing by the head table, as prim and proper as ever. And I could still feel him, the traces of his presence lingering on my body. 

"Captain Han Solo," the herald proclaimed.

I stood by my seat, waiting until Dad had reached the table.

"This is a lot of fuss for some eggs and bacon," he said when he stopped next to me.

I smiled despite myself. 

We sat down and the breakfast was brought in by livery clad serving staff that moved with military precision. A steady hum of voices rose as conversations were picked up.

"Feel okay about tomorrow?" Dad asked. 

"Yeah," I replied.

A plate of something that looked like scallops and a bunch of other stuff was placed before me, but my thoughts were not on food. Armitage clearly had a thing for power plays, but that wasn't something I had much previous experience with. Unless you counted the thing with Orson… His blatant indifference had probably stoked the flames of my desire. But that wasn't the same thing. 

The sex I’d had, with guys I’d met in bars, was ordinary. Sometimes good, sometimes not so good, maybe a bit on the rough side occasionally, and always laced with the fear that they would recognize me, but no one had ever talked about fucking me in a room full of people before. Or talked much at all. I’d kept conversation to a minimum, because the less they knew about me the better. 

"I suppose a bit of nerves is only to be expected…"

It took me a few seconds before I realized Dad had spoken.

"Why?" I said.

Dad blinked and seemed to cast around for something to say.

"Well, getting married is a big thing."

"It's political," I said flatly.

I wasn't sure why I said that.

"Yeah…" He sighed a little. "He seems like an okay guy, though, right?" he said then.

"Yeah," I said, relenting a little. "He's okay."

Dad smiled a little. “That’s good.”

After breakfast it was another day of non-stop activity. I had lots of days like that, but today it felt like a chore. Armitage and I had a ten minute cigarette break to ourselves, huddling in a doorway to stay out of the rain, and I kissed him.

“Are you keeping the beard?” I asked.

“Um, yes.”

“Wanna sleep in my room tonight?”

“We have a rather busy day tomorrow, or have you forgotten?”

“That’s rich, after the stunt you pulled today.”

“I was on time.”

A laugh escaped me. “You’re unbelievable.”

His face was inches from mine. In the gray-white light his eyes were a startling green.

“As fun as that was,” I said, “I meant actual sleep.”

He met my gaze. “Well, all right,” he said.


	18. Chapter 18

Rain was pattering against the windows once more that evening as I poured us each a glass of whiskey from the decanter in my borrowed sitting room. Armitage didn't drink much, unless you counted tea, but he had accepted when I asked him if he wanted one.

We sat down on the sofas, opposite each other. It was quiet. Tomorrow loomed big in my head and made it strangely hard to come up with something to say. Nerves, as my dad had pointed out.

I took a sip of my drink.

"So, what are you going to do about Cardinal?" I asked.

Armitage looked up from his own glass.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

I smiled a little. "He clearly has a thing for you."

Armitage frowned, looking bewildered. "What do you mean 'a thing'?"

"Oh, come on. The guy is completely head over heels for you."

At last he seemed to catch on.

"Don't be absurd!"

"He can't keep his eyes off you."

"He's a guard dog, that's his job!"

I shook my head in disbelief.

"He's paid to watch me," Armitage said, sounding as if he was explaining something to a child. 

"I don't think he's paid to watch you as if he wants to suck your cock."

He glared at me.

"Is this your idea of a joke?" he said. "Because it's neither funny, nor clever…"

"It's obvious he's in love with you!"

"Don't be ridiculous!"

He really hadn't noticed? That was priceless. And possibly even a little sad. I noticed when Rey changed her shampoo, simply because I spent so much time in close proximity to her.

"You really didn't know?" I said.

"What is wrong with you? He's not… This is something that you've dreamed up in your perverted little mind."

I didn't know if I was supposed to laugh or what.

"Is it such an outlandish idea? He's clearly gay…"

"You don't know that!"

This was getting ridiculous.

"Yes, I do. And if I know that, you know that…"

"No, I don't."

"How could you not know?" A chilling thought suddenly occurred to me. "Are you fucking him?"

"What?!" Armitage's face twisted in outrage and something that looked almost like revulsion. "Of course not!"

"Then why are you pretending you haven't even noticed he's gay?"

"Because I haven't!"

"You must have!"

"I haven't!"

"How is that possible? You're around him every day!"

"Maybe I don't spend my time ogling the hired help!"

"Oh, my god… Is your gaydar broken? It's so fucking obvious! He even wants to fuck you, how could you not know?!"

"Because I'm not gay!"

For a second I just stared at him.

"What?" 

He rose to his feet. 

"I'm not gay!" He looked livid. "But now, because of you, the whole world thinks I am!"

I felt as if the air had been pushed out of my lungs. 

"This alliance was supposed to be accomplished by that stupid tart Carise getting a crown on her head. But then Leia's precious son had to go and tell the world he's a faggot!" Armitage spat.

I couldn't get any words out. My whole body felt frozen. 

"So I had to agree to this disgusting arrangement. _You_ disgust me!"

I felt as if I had been struck. Fragmented thoughts flickered through my mind. Time spent together. Kisses. Sex. He had lied. Something black and oily erupted inside, spreading rapidly through my veins. 

I got to my feet.

"You son of a _whore!_ "

His face paled. It might have been a common insult, but in his case it was the actual truth. Not a lot of people knew. But I did.

"How dare you…" he began, his features twisted with rage, but I cut him off.

"Fuck you! Get out! Get the fuck out of my sight!"

He turned on his heels, with military precision, and the moment the door closed behind him I threw my glass at it, aware of the impotence of the gesture. I should have thrown it in his fucking face, but I knew I would never have dared. I could never have thrown a glass at anyone.

"Fuck!"

I upturned the table with decanters and the next thing to go was the glass he'd left behind. Glass and liquor flew in every direction. It wasn't enough. Nothing was enough. I’d fucking slept with him! The thought made me feel nauseous with shame. I felt so fucking stupid! I made a fist and punched the wall.

"Sir…"

I spun around. D'Acy was inside the door.

"Get out!"

She appeared to hesitate. 

And suddenly not even the pain in my hand could block out the horrible, sickening humiliation. My eyes burned. Oh, God. I couldn't breathe! 

I sank down on the edge of the sofa. I felt my face contort.

"Sir…" D'Acy's voice was soft. Kind. And when she approached I put my arms around her, clinging to her, my face buried against her stomach.

I'd allowed myself to hope… I'd tried so fucking hard. For nothing! It was all for nothing. My body was filled with molten shame.

D'Acy held me, her hands on my head and my neck, but she didn't say anything. Eventually my ugly crying subsided. I wiped my face with my hand. I couldn't meet her eyes.

"Do you wish to speak to the Queen?" D'Acy asked.

"No."

I definitely didn't want to do that. I took a few shaky breaths.

"Thank you, that'll be all," I finally managed to say. 

I thought maybe she nodded a little.

"Try to get some sleep," she said and the almost motherly gentleness of it nearly made me start crying again.

**

I didn't sleep. I didn't even get undressed. My mind kept playing every moment I'd spent with Armitage on a loop and the betrayal cut deeper with every repeat. It had all been one big lie and I hated myself for falling for it. How could I be so stupid? Had I willfully fooled myself? Because I was too weak, too afraid, to see the truth?

_You disgust me._

I fucking hated him. 

Panic kept searing the edges of my mind and I struggled to keep it at bay, but didn’t succeed. I was trapped. There was no way out of this. 

When D'Acy came to 'wake me' I felt bleary-eyed and nauseous.

I couldn't do this. I couldn't marry him. The thought of facing him, the thought of standing there, in front of all those people, knowing I had been tricked, knowing how he truly felt about me, was unbearable.

I sat up in bed and rubbed at my face. My right hand was sore, from the punch to the wall.

"You have to get me something," I said.

"What do you need?"

"Something. Pills. Weed. Anything."

"I can't do that."

"Just do it!"

"I'm sorry, Sir, but I can't."

"Then what's the fucking point of you, you stupid cow?!"

I stared at her. She didn't reply, just turned her gaze down. I was too miserable to feel guilty about lashing out at her.

"Perhaps you should talk to the Queen," she said.

"No!"

I got up. 

My mother wasn't going to say, 'Oh, so he's not actually gay? Well, let's call the whole thing off then'. It was too late. Much too late. She'd taken a risk by letting me marry a man in the first place and I knew she'd done that because she cared about me, but there would be no more risks. Too much hinged on me getting married today. The scandal alone would be politically damning. 

Telling her what I now knew served no purpose; it would only add to my humiliation. She would pity me, sure, and then she would tell me to suck it up. Spread your legs and think of Alderaan.

Except there would be none of that. What I'd thought of as mutual attraction had been - what? A chore? A necessity to ensure I was duped? Thinking about the sex, now, made me feel foolish and embarrassed. I thought it had been good, more than good actually, but to him it had been repulsive. The things he'd said sounded very different when I thought about them now.

_Faggot. You disgust me._

"Cancel the honeymoon," I said to D'Acy.

That at least was an indignity I did not have to suffer through. 

"Sir, that needs to be cleared with General Hux…"

"Just talk to Peavey!" Armitage had no desire to go on a honeymoon with me, I knew that much. "There's too much to do, preparations for the Senate."

She didn't believe that and Armitage wouldn't believe that, although I didn't give a shit what he believed, but publicly that would sound credible.

What exactly did she believe? How much of it had she been able to deduce? I didn't care to find out.

I couldn't eat any of the opulent breakfast that was brought in on a tray. It felt morbidly like a last meal. I smoked cigarette after cigarette instead. Someone, probably D'Acy, had made sure the broken glass had been cleared away and the spilt liquor had been mopped up. A faint smell of alcohol lingered.

I took a shower and shaved. Time moved inexorably forward, minute after minute. I couldn’t do this. I had to do this.

I found Rey just outside my suite.

"I need you to get something for me," I said.

"What, Sir?"

In my experience, the guards in my personal security detail were more susceptible to doing things off the books. Things like accompany me to a less respectable part of Mos Eisley and then resolutely pretend not to notice what kind of bar I went to. Maybe it was because of their training, I'd heard it described as indoctrination, and the level of loyalty expected of them, to me personally, not merely to the realm. They were supposed to be prepared to lay down their lives for me. 

Rey’s brown eyes were clear as she looked up at me. 

“Pills,” I said. “Downers.”

Her face revealed nothing. Maybe there was a moment’s hesitation, then she nodded.

“I’ll see what I can do, Sir.”

She left and I returned to my room. I was not a habitual drug user, very far from it, but I needed something. Something that would get me through this day. I tried not to think about how I would get through the rest of my life. 

And then I had to get dressed, in the suit made especially for this day. Maybe I could have it burned after. D’Acy had gone and changed too, into a green dress. She was a thin, sort of mousy-looking woman, but she looked pretty. Her waist was tiny. I’d never thought of that before. She straightened my clothes and my hair. 

“Time to head down, Sir,” she said then.

And then I was walking down the corridor. Down the stairs. Along the gallery where portraits of old Arkanis military leaders lined the walls. Just as turned into the main entrance hall Rey stepped up close behind me. I felt the warmth of her hand against mine for a brief second. She had slipped a few pills into my hand.


	19. Chapter 19

_The Wedding Day_

*

At 7.45 a.m., just fifteen minutes before he was about to start his shift, Cardinal was called into Captain Graham’s office. The whole thing took less than five minutes.

“You’re dismissed,” the captain said at last and Cardinal left the room.

His arms and legs appeared to have gone numb and he stopped just outside, unable to move and with nowhere to be anymore anyway. He barely noticed the other guards walking past him, giving him odd looks.

The captain hadn’t offered an explanation. He was a superior officer so he didn’t need to and most likely he hadn’t been given one himself, but Cardinal knew. He knew he had slipped up and tomorrow at 0800 hours he would report to Border Patrol.

*

Wrobie had a day off. She puttered about the house, taking care of some potted plants in desperate need of a bit of TLC, sorted through the piles of mail and papers on the kitchen table and had a cup of coffee on the patio at the back of the house, overlooking the narrow garden.

A day like any other, or at least that was how she was treating it, but when it began to draw near she turned on the TV. Of course she was going to watch. By now the cafeteria at work would be crammed, everyone’s eyes glued to the TV in the corner. In shops, in diners, in living rooms, in offices - everyone was watching.

Whenever there was a segment on the news about Prince Ben, she searched for Larma among the faces around him. It was probably a bit silly, but it was one of those irresistible things, it was exciting to see someone you knew on TV. 

Wrobie didn’t know much more about Prince Ben than what she had seen on TV or read in the papers. He was a tall, imposing man, with a serious face, his features bordering on peculiar. 

Larma always referred to him as 'His Royal Highness' whenever she spoke about him, to minimize the risk of an unintentional confidentiality breach. But he called her sometimes and Wrobie overheard Larma’s side of the conversations. Because of that, and because Larma had worked for him for as long as Wrobie had known her, he seemed a little bit more like a real, actual person, someone who existed in real life as opposed to people you only saw on TV.

On the TV screen the commentators were talking about the guests who had begun to arrive at the church in Arkanis with voices that trembled with a mix of reverence and excitement. 

Wrobie watched a never ending stream of kings and queens, princes and princesses, aristocrats and generals. Some of them paid no attention at all to the enormous crowd that had gathered, (a panorama shot showed that the streets were packed for several blocks in all directions), but many of them smiled and waved before disappearing inside the church. 

Queen Leia looked fantastic in a blood red dress and an impressive tiara sparkled atop her hair, which she, rather bravely in Wrobie’s opinion, did not dye but allowed to turn gray naturally. It did nothing to detract from her beauty. Captain Solo was wearing the dress uniform of the Alderaanian Army. He had a roguish charm that age had not diminished. 

Then at long last all the guests had gone inside and the screen showed the empty steps of the church, the crowd, then the solemn faces of the rows of the Arkanisian soldiers that were facing the crowd, then back to the front of the church. The anticipation could be felt even through the TV. 

And then a black car appeared. One of the commentators audibly drew in a sharp breath. The camera zoomed in and Wrobie found herself caught up in the suspense. Because it was exciting and as a lesbian woman she had cheered when it was announced that Prince Ben was going to marry a man. Same-sex marriage had been legal for quite a few years, but a Prince who was openly gay was important on a different level. 

They were getting out of the car now. 

Wrobie had nothing against Prince Ben, not really. He sounded erudite when he spoke in public and he would no doubt make an excellent king one day. It was just that Larma refusing to leave her job and now she was moving to Hosnian because of it, well… it felt as if she was choosing him above Wrobie, above the baby they had talked about having. Prince Ben already had a mother. He had an entire court at his beck and call. 

Prince Ben looked regal in a dark suit and General Hux was wearing the dress uniform of the Arkanis Army. Both of them looked as solemn as the soldiers standing guard. Maybe they were nervous, if people like them got nervous. But your wedding day was your wedding day, wasn’t it? 

Then they went inside and the commentators talked a bit more about the handsome couple and said that they were expected to greet the people in front of Vensenor House later. The screen cut to an old segment of a much younger Queen Leia holding a black-haired baby. Prince Ben’s first public appearance. Wrobie had seen it before. 

Six months, they had agreed. Enough time for Larma to ensure everything was running smoothly in Hosnian, that’s how she had put it, and then she was coming home. She would find a new job and they would start a family.

*

Ben was _high_. Not blatantly so, thank God, but his pupils were dilated, leaving only a thin ring of brown around them, and there was something vaguely distant about his expression. Was he out of his mind?! He knew the importance of this day, how could he be so reckless? Leia felt a surge of anger, but then it receded, leaving a sense of guilt in its wake. He was nervous. Of course he was.

Leia knew that her guilt was largely rooted in the fact that she had not done this herself. She had married the man she loved, an unsuitable man, putting her own personal happiness before the good of Alderaan. And yet she demanded more of Ben. 

It might have been more than thirty years ago, but the political situation they were in today was not new. An alliance through marriage would have been strategically sound and Arkanis had been a very viable option then too. 

The thought of being married to Brendol Hux made her stomach twist with repulsion. But it might have happened, had she not been young and selfish. Ben wouldn’t have existed. Most likely, in what was now an almost incestuous notion, she would have raised Armitage as her own. Because that boy was not the son of the esteemed Maratelle Hux. 

It was a well-kept secret, Brendol Hux had made sure of that, but Leia knew the truth, although she had not once acknowledged that she did. She wanted this alliance. Telling Brendol Hux she knew his son was a bastard and that he had paid off a prostitute he had gotten pregnant would not have been a smart move. Amilyn Holdo, her chief of Intelligence, was the only other person in the Royal Court who was privy to this information. Leia hadn’t even told Han. 

“Han,” she said now, her voice low, barely even moving her lips.

“What?”

“When Ben goes to the bathroom, you need to go with him.”

“What, why?”

“He’s high. I need you to check up on him and make sure he doesn’t take any more drugs.”

“What?!”

“Ssch.”

Leia took a sip of her wine. 

“Jesus…” Han said after a moment, perhaps having studied Ben a little closer.

That was Leia’s sentiment exactly. She felt that twist of guilt again. She had deliberately taken a step back, allowing Ben to handle things the way he thought was best. It seemed to have gone pretty well; he and Armitage had spent time together and they seemed to work well together. Even so, nations could be easier to maneuver than people. Was it just nervousness? 

Brendol Hux raised his glass and smiled at her, so she raised her own and smiled back. Armitage did seem like a more pleasant man than his father and Leia sincerely hoped, for Ben’s sake, that he was.

*

Rose felt Finn’s hand on her thigh underneath the table. She shot him a quick look, half reproachful, half in mutual understanding.

She had been having so much sex since they got engaged, she almost wondered who this concupiscible woman was that was wearing her skin. 

Finn’s hand was warm through the thin material of her dress and she shifted her leg to make him remove it. It was distracting. They were at a wedding! And her parents were sitting right across the table. 

As far as she knew, her parents still believed she was a virgin, and that she would remain so until her wedding night, and she preferred they kept that belief. They were a bit old-fashioned. They would be appalled if they learned that she had in fact slept with Finn only two days into their engagement. She had actually shocked herself a little by doing that. 

She looked up at the head table. Ben and Armitage wore similar solemn expressions. Maybe she would look like that on her own wedding day, aware of the weight of hundreds upon hundreds of eyes on her. 

She tried to catch Ben’s eye. She liked him. He was nice, surprisingly soft-spoken, in that deep voice of his, and he leaned down a little sometimes when she spoke to him. She liked how he did that, as if what she had to say was important and he wanted to hear it. She wasn’t sure he saw her, but she smiled anyway, just in case.

*

Brendol could have done without having to watch Armitage lock lips with a man, that was just nauseating, but other than that the ceremony had gone well. Now the banquet hall was filled with voices, as the hundreds of dignitaries in attendance stuffed themselves with the best food in the Republic.

Brendol noticed Armitage had barely touched his plate and had to resist the urge to comment on it. Growing up he’d been ridiculously fussy, picking at his food like a damn girl, and Brendol had boxed his ear for it a number of times. 

Well, he was leaving for Hosnian now, so he would be out of Brendol’s way for a while. Damn smart of Leia, Brendol had to admit, appointing them both senators. That would keep them busy. Might be a bit character-building at that. 

He caught Leia’s gaze across the table and raised his glass to her in a toast. She raised her own in return. She was a damn fine looking woman, despite the fact that she was not exactly young anymore.

There had been a time when he might have ended up marrying her, he knew. He would not have minded getting a taste of that. Of course, actually being married to her would have been a nightmare, of that he had no doubt. Better this way. All the benefits, without as much hassle. Although, everyone thinking he’d raised a poof was a drawback, but still, this alliance was worth it.

*

Ben was leaning over the toilet, throwing up. Han stood behind him, not sure what to do. He’d told the Rey girl to not let anyone else in, but he felt that was pretty inadequate. Ben sounded as if he was expelling his lungs and Han put a hand on his back.

“Hey…” 

Eventually it seemed Ben had nothing more to throw up and he got to his feet. His eyes were wet and he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. 

“What did you take?” Han asked. 

Ben didn’t reply and Han sighed.

“Taking drugs?” he said, shaking his head. “That’s a really bad idea.” 

He looked at Ben. God, the kid looked like a mess. All of this was a fucking mess, in Han’s opinion.

“Is it that bad?” he asked, not sure exactly how to phrase it. 

Ben didn’t say anything, but his eyes filled up. Oh, jeez. Crying always made Han nervous. He could remember crying himself on exactly one occasion: the day Ben was born.

“Hey…” he said. “It’s gonna be okay.” 

Ben swallowed. 

“Dad…”

“Yeah?”

Ben opened his mouth. Han waited, but Ben didn’t say anything. 

Han wanted to tell him to forget all this. The alliance, being a prince, all of it. Leia wouldn’t like that. Then he thought, fuck it, this was his kid too.

“Look,” he said. “You don’t have to do this.”

“It’s already done.”

“Yeah, well… these things aren’t written in stone. You can walk away, do… whatever it is you wanna do.”

But at hearing that, Ben’s face seemed to close up, as if a curtain was being drawn over his features. Christ, he was like his mother. 

“No, I can’t,” he said. 

It was quiet for a few seconds. 

“Okay,” Han said then. He sighed. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Ben washed his face and his hands, then pulled his fingers through his hair. He had what Han thought of as a rather complicated hairstyle. 

Han straightened his jacket for him.

“Feeling a bit better?” he asked.

Ben nodded. 

“There’s a lot of nerves on a day like this,” Han said. “Everybody’s watching, there’s a lot of pressure. Maybe it’ll feel better in the morning.”

What kind of shit was he sprouting? He had no idea what he was talking about. 

He put his hand on Ben’s cheek. It was warm. 

“Don’t do any more drugs, okay?” he said. 

“Okay,” Ben said. 

Han smiled a little. He lowered his hand and he had a feeling it had been a very long time since he touched Ben like this. When had he last hugged him? 

But he had never hit him. Not once. He remembered the thrashings he’d gotten as a kid and he had been determined not to be that particular kind of asshole. 

They turned towards the door.

“Will you tell Mom?” Ben asked.

“That you were puking your guts out? Nah, I don’t think she needs to know.”

Ben smiled a little. A small smile, but still, it was something.


	20. Chapter 20

_Larma D’Acy_

The house in Hosnian was an architectural work of art, with plenty of large glass walls and an open air feeling, yet welcoming, even cosy, thanks to the warm cream colors and elements of chestnut wood. Privacy was ensured by the use of mirror glass and the many large cypresses in the garden outside.

And it was so, so quiet. As if a cold war was being waged within its walls. Prince Ben and General Hux had installed themselves in different parts of the house and had gone out of their way to avoid each other. What little communication there had been over the past two weeks, mostly regarding their upcoming work in the Senate, had been conducted through Larma and Peavey. 

Larma didn’t know the details of what had happened. Clearly there had been a fight and it must have been personal, rather than about politics. When it came to politics Prince Ben could be stubborn and get angry, but then he would calm down, or put a lid on it, and get things done. 

Now he was… Well, Larma would have used the word sad, or depressed. Not so bad he couldn’t get out of bed or had stopped taking showers, but he stayed in the house and only ventured outside to smoke.

She put away the last of today’s work. She was going to say goodnight to Prince Ben and then head home. Or to the apartment. It didn’t feel like home.

Prince Ben was in his bedroom. 

“Sir, do you need anything else before I leave?” she asked.

He looked up from his tablet. She thought he probably needed glasses, because he always held it just a smidgen too close to his face. Perhaps she should tell him. But it could wait.

_It can’t wait too long_ , she thought. Because she was leaving, but she hadn’t told him yet. 

“No, thank you,” he said.

“Okay. Goodnight.”

“Wait.”

He got up. 

“Can you stay a little?” he asked. 

She could, she had nowhere to be, no one waiting for her, but she hesitated. 

“Sir…” she began.

He took her hand and she looked up at him in surprise, because he had never done that before. 

“Please,” he said. 

His hair was a little messy and part of her wanted to reach up and fix it for him. 

She should tell him no. It was not a good idea to blur the lines between a professional relationship and a personal one.

Then he slid his hand up her arm and the mood in the room seemed to shift. She could feel it happening, as if it was an entity of its own. He was standing very close and she was suddenly aware of the masculine width of him. 

He was more than a head taller than her and she looked up at him. She could see in his eyes what he wanted, what he was thinking, and that was an even worse idea. He was just lonely, looking for attention and comfort and going about it in completely the wrong way. 

He was her boss. She was married. He was married! And even though he was an attractive man, she had never thought of him in that way. But she felt sorry for him and she did care about him a great deal, and those emotions must have gotten all tangled up and stopped her from thinking straight, because when he kissed her, she kissed him back. 

She had seen him naked many times, but it was very different being naked with him, touching him and being touched in return. His big, warm hands against her body, his mouth on her skin. 

It was a little awkward, because who they normally were to each other didn’t entirely leave the room. She couldn’t help but think, when she wrapped her fingers around his penis, about how she had known him since he was nineteen and this was wrong in so many ways. 

But it was nice, too. He was surprisingly generous, moving his fingers inside her and rubbing her clit until she was close to coming, but she was not relaxed enough to have an orgasm. And then he was sliding into her; he was on the larger side, but she was wet and it felt as if her body molded itself around him. 

He moved inside her and she held her arms around him, his body big and warm on top of her, and it felt good, even though the strangeness of him lying between her legs and she moving her hips to meet his, was still there. His breaths were sharp and ragged in her ear. She could tell when he came by his sharp exhale, bordering on a grunt, and the way he tensed. 

He moved his hips a few more times, slowly, a smooth slide in and out of her, and then he pulled out. He lay down next to her, but put his hand just below her right breast, almost but not quite holding her. 

They stayed like that for a little while, catching their breaths. But all the thoughts she had not had moments ago quickly came rushing in. She had cheated on Wrobie. The guilt was horrible. This had been a terrible mistake. 

The room, which had been filled with the sound of their combined breaths, seemed very quiet now and she sat up, then turned her head and looked at him. He had beautiful eyes, she had always thought so, and she could see in them now that he knew, just as well as she did, that this should never have happened. 

“I should go,” she said. 

He didn’t reply and she got out of the bed and started to put her clothes back on. He sat up and pulled the sheet over his legs and privates. The gesture stood out, because he wasn’t normally shy about being naked. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said when she had finished dressing, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

She couldn’t make herself add ‘Sir’ to the end of that sentence, not when she could still feel the wetness of his semen between her legs. That would bring this threateningly close to something that she was not comfortable to even contemplate. 

He nodded. “Yeah, see you tomorrow.”

**

She handed in her resignation the next morning.

“No,” Prince Ben said, putting the paper down on the table. 

They were not in his bedroom. He had been in the study when she arrived.

“It’s for the best,” she said. 

It felt very strange and awkward seeing him now, after having been so intimate with him, as physically close as two people could be. He was not the first man she had slept with, but he was probably the first gay man. Perhaps there was some dark irony to the fact that she had been unfaithful with someone who she knew, beyond a doubt, did not actually want her. 

She had messed things up. He should have known better too. They hadn’t even used a condom. She had driven by a pharmacy on her way to work and bought morning after pills. 

“Nothing like that will ever happen again,” he said. 

“It’s not that I think it will…”

“I’m sorry.”

The apology seemed to hang between them, out of place and desperate. 

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” she said. “But I can’t keep working for you after having slept with you. I hoped you would understand that.”

He was quiet for a few seconds.

“Lots of people sleep with their assistants,” he said then.

That was insulting, which she guessed had been his intent. But last night had not felt like a dirty little romp. It had actually been kind of lovely, until reality came crashing back in.

“I’ll start the process of finding a replacement, Sir,” she said, ignoring his crass comment. 

He didn’t reply.

“I was hoping we could remain on friendly terms,” she said after a moment’s pause. 

He looked at her then. “Of course,” he said. He appeared to take a deep breath. “Can you have a shortlist finished by the end of next week?”

It didn’t sound entirely natural, there was no erasing what had transpired, but she appreciated his attempt to return to the roles they had inhabited before this. It was what she wanted. It was the only way she could keep doing her job, for the final few weeks that remained of it.

“Certainly, Sir.”


	21. Chapter 21

_Armitage_

Phasma arrived in a cloud of Chanel No.5 and something that felt, most peculiarly, like the smell of home. Perhaps it was the smell of rain, because it was pouring down outside.

Armitage showed her around and she proclaimed it to be a marvelous house.

“Let’s not go there,” he said and caught her elbow when she made a move to head to the eastern part of the house. 

The rooms on the east side were where Ben was making a remarkable impression of a caged lion. 

“Why not?” Phasma asked.

“Ben doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

“He’s home?”

“I just told you, he doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

“Fine. Let’s have tea.”

They took their tea in the sitting room in the western corner of the house. The glass wall faced a part of the garden enclosed by tall winter greens. A fireplace adorned one end of the room and a large painting took up most of the wall opposite. 

Phasma stirred her cup, then placed the spoon on the saucer. It made a soft click.

“So,” she said, leaning back and crossing her legs, “how is married life?”

Her voice was largely free of inflection and yet there was an undercurrent in the question, because she knew it was all for show. 

“Fine,” he said. He took a sip of his tea. “Ben knows,” he said then. 

Phasma didn’t look particularly surprised. 

“How did he find out?” she asked.

Armitage felt reluctant to tell her. He was embarrassed about how he had lost control. But he knew all of her dirty secrets and she knew, if not all then most, of his. That’s what friendship was, you told each other things.

“I told him,” he admitted.

“You told him?” That did seem to surprise her a little, then her eyes went wide. “Oh, my god, he tried to seduce you!”

“No, he didn’t!” 

That was the truth. The circumstances had been quite different. He resolutely did not think about the look of hurt on Ben’s face and how his eyes had turned unnaturally shiny. It was political, it had always been political, Ben knew that just as well as he did.

“He never did? Not once?” Phasma asked and the question caught Armitage off-guard. 

He told her quite a lot of things, but the things he’d done with Ben he had opted to keep to himself. He thought of ways to distract her from this line of questioning. 

But she knew him far too well.

“How far did you go, exactly?” she said, the words slow and deliberate.

He gave her an annoyed look. He could lie. Maybe she would believe him, but what was the point? 

“I slept with him,” he said, a strange mixture of shame and defiance filling him.

“You slept with him?!”

“Well, I didn’t have a choice, did I?” He glared at her. 

She was quiet for a moment. 

“What was it like?” she asked then.

Oh my god, she was a horrible person.

“You already know what it’s like,” he said. “Or did you revert to a state of virginity?”

“Not when it’s two men, I don’t. Well, that’s not entirely true, but I’ve always been in between them.”

He very nearly rolled his eyes, but truth be told, he felt more than a little uncomfortable. It had been a mistake to tell her. He should have known she wouldn’t let it rest.

“So, who did who?” she asked.

“Obviously I did him.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Stop stalling, and tell me what it was like.”

“It isn’t any of your business.”

“Was it good?”

“No.”

That was a lie. It had been quite spectacular, in a way he had never anticipated. He wasn’t gay. Sex with a man should have been repulsive. The fact that he had enjoyed it made him feel vaguely sickened by himself.

There was another few seconds of silence.

“So, the two of you had sex,” Phasma said then, “and now he’s…”

“Upset. Can we please talk about something else now?”

**

His work in the Senate would prevent him from going away with Phasma for his birthday this year, as they had done last fall, but since she was a disgustingly idle person with nothing of importance to do, she could stay in Hosnian for a while. They could do things in the evenings, when he didn’t have to work late.

The start of his new job as Senator was coming up faster than he had thought it would. Two weeks had felt like a very long time when he had thought about it beforehand. There were things he and Ben needed to discuss. They were going to have to work together. But Ben was still moping in his room, like an overgrown teenager.

Armitage had to be the better man. He knew it had been cruel to throw the truth in Ben’s face the way he did, but that did not excuse the frankly alarming level of irresponsible behaviour that Ben had exhibited afterwards. He had been high during the wedding, in the presence of hundreds of guests. Perhaps he thought Armitage wouldn’t notice, but he did. 

Ben was lounging in an armchair in his study, one long leg thrown over the armrest. It was quite remarkable how he looked positively regal when he was wearing a suit, but when he was in jeans and a sweater he looked so casual no one would ever have believed him to be a prince. 

He looked up from his tablet and his eyes went dark. Not because of chemical stimuli this time. 

“We need to discuss Proposition 407,” Armitage said.

Ben said nothing. 

“It is bound to come up first thing,” Armitage said. 

Still nothing.

He was such a cliché. The traces of an emo-goth adolescence still visible in the petulant pout of his mouth. An overly religious uncle? Of course the corresponding Marilyn Manson albums could be found in his record collection. Armitage had seen them.

“I expect you’ll be able to behave like an adult long enough to do your job?” he said. 

“Didn’t take you long to move in your girlfriend.”

For a second Armitage actually couldn’t form a reply; he was so surprised. There was nothing sexual, or romantic, between him and Phasma, nor had there ever been, so the idea that Ben could believe there was, was simply outlandish. 

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

Ben made a sound that was almost a scoff and judging by his expression he didn’t believe that. 

“We are just friends,” Armitage said. 

It was unclear whether Ben believed it or not, but the next thing he said was:

“She knew.”

It was half statement, half question. Armitage felt something squirm a little inside. Thinking back now on Phasma’s visit to Alderaan, involving her that way did make the whole thing seem like a much more elaborate con than it was ever supposed to be. 

“It was never my intention to hurt your feelings,” he began.

“Will you stop pretending you’re such a fucking decent person!”

“Fine, I’m not a decent person, and neither are you. You would have married anyone, just the same as me.”

“Fuck you.”

And they were back at the expletives. 

Armitage’s thoughts turned involuntarily to what Ben had said to him during their last argument, after Armitage had told him he wasn’t gay. But it was just an expression. He couldn’t actually know, could he? 

“Will you pull yourself together?!” Armitage said.

He couldn’t stop himself from feeling a twinge of worry, because if Ben came apart, it all fell apart. He needed to pull his weight in the Senate. All the plans for the future, plans they had agreed on incidentally, all of it hinged on this alliance and Ben’s cooperation. Was he really so unstable he was willing to throw all that away?

“Get a grip!” 

Ben gave him a dark look. 

Despite getting nowhere in that particular conversation, Ben did exit his bedroom on Monday morning, wearing a suit and looking like his professional self. But they didn’t speak and they went in separate cars to the Senate.

The Republic Senate was housed in a large, imposing building, colloquially known as The Concord, as ironic as that was. It was surrounded by a sprawling park and the whole thing was fenced in by a tall wall. The gate was guarded around the clock. Security had always been tight, but ever since The First Order began their attacks, it had been been doubled.

When they were finally through the gate they headed to the underground garage. By the time Armitage stepped out of his car, Ben had already gone inside. 

Let him sulk, Armitage thought. He could speak to him later, he had other things to do first anyway. 

The office that had previously belonged to the former senator from Arkanis was quite adequate for Armitage’s needs. The window overlooked a leafy part of the park and it would let in the afternoon sun on less cloudy days than today. There was however a portrait of Arkanis’ esteemed leader Grand General Brendol Hux on the wall. Armitage took that down. 

Peavey had his own desk just outside and in the corridor beyond the members of the senatorial delegation had their own offices. Armitage figured he was expected to make a speech, to commemorate this new beginning for the Arkanisian delegation. 

He took a seat behind his desk and noted that his stationary had his new title printed at the top. H.R.H. Prince Armitage, General of Arkanis. Gaining a royal title had never been a priority of his, although he had to admit that looked rather good. Of course, it was an empty title. There was no actual power connected to it, beyond whatever influence he might exert over Ben.

Thinking about Ben was like stirring a hornet’s nest, a wave of irritation welled up inside and he quickly clamped down on it. He opened his laptop. About that speech. Something brief would suffice. Just a few words to wish everyone welcome and perhaps stress the importance of the work ahead.

He had chosen an all new senatorial delegation. He didn’t want any old hats who thought they knew best, or who harbored any particular loyalty to Brendol. Rae Sloane had been an obvious choice. She was smart, organized, and what she perhaps lacked in imagination, she made up for with an ability to get things done. She also wasn’t afraid to speak her mind when she had a different opinion, and that could be very useful.

The others he had chosen for similar reasons, their talent and abilities. Except for one person. Carise Sindian. Her he had picked because he figured he needed to keep an eye on her. Her ambition, combined with her family’s influence, made her a liability. Keep your enemies close, and all that.

He also hadn’t forgot how she had badmouthed him when it was announced that he would marry Ben. She probably thought he didn’t know, but it had reached his ears. The position he had offered her was a minor one, but she could not viably refuse, given she had no other official commitment. No doubt she was hoping to advance, but he could keep her in that lowly role forever.

The Senate did not convene that day, so Armitage worked mainly in his office. He made a few excursions, most notably to the offices belonging to the Senators from Kef Bir and Hayes Minor respectively. He did not make a detour past Ben’s office, just hoped that he was getting some work done in there, like he was supposed to.

It was not all that late when he returned home. The house seemed quiet. He headed to the dining room, next to the kitchen, and sat down by the table with his tablet while he waited for dinner. Phasma had gone out with some acquaintances to eat tonight.

He saw the headlights of Ben’s car through the window after a while, but was surprised when Ben showed up in the dining room moments later. Ben had not taken any of his meals in there thus far. 

He disappeared into the kitchen and a moment later he was shouting at the staff. Armitage put down his fork. In all honesty…

Ben turned up in the doorway again.

“What’s the matter now?” Armitage said. 

“It’s been vegetarian food every single fucking day!”

“That’s because I don’t eat meat.”

Ben gave him a look that was half incredulity, half irritation.

“Yes, you do,” he said. 

“I do if I have to, but not when I can choose not to.”

“So it’s another fucking thing you lied about!”

Armitage threw a reflexive glance at the door to the kitchen, which was still open. This was unseemly. 

“Why didn’t you just say you’re a vegetarian?” Ben demanded.

“I’m not a vegetarian.”

“That’s what you just said!”

“No, vegetarians wear corduroy trousers and complain about the treatment of cats.”

“Whereas you wear a uniform and don’t eat meat. Like Hitler.”

Did he actually just say that? Armitage stood up.

“Did you just compare me to Hitler?!”

Ben might actually have looked a little bit contrite. 

“Why don’t you eat meat?” he asked.

Armitage wasn’t really in the mood to talk anymore with him. But he had to know what his thoughts were on how they would deal with Proposition 407. They had to strategize. He sat down again.

“Eating meat is disgusting,” he said, in a level voice. 

“All meat?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Why. That was harder to explain. It was not out of love for animals, he had no particular interest in animals, although that was what his father had thought when he told him he wanted to give up eating meat. Brendol told him to stop being a sissy. Well, they would see who got the last laugh, Brendol’s arteries most likely resembled a narrow street in rush hour by now.

“Well, you’re eating muscles and sinews… I honestly don’t understand why everyone doesn’t find that disgusting.”

“And you couldn’t just have said that?”

Armitage hadn’t said anything, because he didn’t want to appear weak. He never said anything in formal settings. 

“You’re a complete headcase!” Ben said.

“Oh, and you’re the picture of stability and normalcy, are you?”

“I don’t compulsively lie!”

“You are as emotional as a child! You have no discipline…”

“Like you?”

“Don’t be petty.”

Ben glared at him with something akin to loathing.

“Anyone would have been better than you.”

“Well, you’re stuck with me, so are you going to squander any political advantage we might have with your tantrums, or are you going start acting like a grown-up?”

Ben looked as if he had a good mind to start throwing things, but then he turned around and left the room. 

Armitage stared down at his plate. He actually didn’t have much of an appetite now, even if it was an all vegetarian dish.


	22. Chapter 22

The door to Armitage’s office flew open and Ben stormed in. The office wasn’t small, but he made it appear that way. It was really annoying how big he was. _But the size of him was one of the things that made it so very good…_ Armitage firmly pushed that thought away.

“Carise Sindian?” Ben said, glaring at Armitage.

Armitage was about to get up and close the door, which Ben had not been considerate enough to do, but Peavey was outside and closed it for him. 

“It took you this long to find out?” Armitage replied. “I’m disappointed.”

“Why the fuck did you appoint her?”

“She’s from a prominent family, she has a degree in political science…”

“Cut the bullshit.”

“To keep her on a short leash.”

Armitage looked up at him. He hadn’t bothered to get up from his seat. Ben could stand there on the other side of the desk like a pupil in the headmaster’s office.

Ben narrowed his eyes. “You think she’s going to cause trouble?”

“I think there’s nothing she won’t do to get ahead.”

“You two have a lot in common.”

Armitage didn’t rise to the bait.

“This way I know exactly where she is and I can control where she goes, which is nowhere.”

Something hesitant appeared in Ben’s face. 

“She’s not all bad,” he said. 

Armitage knew all about the two of them. He also knew that Carise was not an especially pleasant person, and Ben was gay. So if Ben could jump to the defense of his ex, whom he most likely had not felt too deeply about, then how loyal would he have been to Armitage? If things hadn’t turned out the way they did, that is. 

It was a pointless thing to dwell on.

“She’s vapid and ambitious,” Armitage said. “That’s the worst combination.”

Ben looked as if he was going to let the matter drop. It made one wonder why he felt the need to storm in here in the first place.

“How long is Phasma staying?” he asked.

“Oh, for crying out loud, she’s not my girlfriend, nor has she ever been!”

“That’s not why I’m asking. We need to have a dinner. Finn and Rose are coming to Hosnian.”

“When?”

“Next week.”

“Alright. Well, Phasma doesn’t have to be there, although…”

“I don’t want her staying in my fucking house!”

“And how exactly does that bother you?”

There was plenty of space in the house and Ben kept to his part of it, while Armitage, and Phasma, stayed in the other half.

“Her existence bothers me,” Ben said. 

That was mature.

“Well, she’s quite fond of you,” Armitage said. “God knows why.”

“Tell her to leave, or I will.”

“No. It’s my house as well…”

Ben slammed his palms down on the desk and Armitage jumped. 

“Get her out.”

They stared at each other. Phasma wasn’t staying indefinitely. And if Ben was this hung up about her being in the house… 

“Fine,” Armitage said. 

Ben straightened again. 

“Do you have the paperwork on the treaty with Akiva?” Armitage asked after a moment.

“I’ll send Connix over with it.”

Connix was his new assistant as of yesterday. She was young, straight from an internship at the Alderaanian court, and actually bore a vague resemblance to Queen Leia. Armitage wondered if Ben was aware of that. 

“Good,” Armitage said. 

When Ben had left, Armitage called Phasma and explained the situation to her. She didn’t take offence, which he knew she wouldn’t. Still, it shouldn’t have been Ben’s decision.

When he got home that evening the lights were on in what he had begun to think of as Ben’s quarters. It was late enough that the staff had gone home and the rest of the house was quiet. 

“Peavey, before you go, will you call Niima and have her send someone over?”

“Certainly, Sir.”

Niima ran an escort service that encompassed practically the whole continent. It was first-class and utterly discreet. 

Armitage didn’t actually like engaging prostitutes. The women were paid to do exactly what you wanted and to pretend to like it. The sex he’d had with women he had dated had been much better. But dating took time and effort, and besides, right now dating wasn’t really an option. Sleeping with a call-girl was still preferable to masturbating. 

The girl who showed up an hour later was beautiful, in her mid to late twenties, and said her name was Margot. It most likely wasn’t. Armitage showed her to his bedroom.

“You can undress and warm yourself up,” he said. “And don’t put on a show, do it like you would have if you had been alone.”

“Okay.”

She began to take her clothes off and Armitage sat down in the chair by the wall. Her body was tanned, like she had recently been somewhere warmer than here. Her breasts differed a little bit from each other in size, but other than that she was virtually flawless. 

He had no particular interest in variety and back in Arkanis he’d always seen one of two girls. They too had bodies and faces like supermodels. He had no doubt that if he were to ask for it, Niima would send someone less bland. But it didn’t really matter, because this wasn’t real.

“On the bed?” she asked when she had finished undressing.

He nodded. 

She did exactly as he had asked. She lay back, legs spread so he could see, and touched herself. He watched, palming himself a bit through his trousers, until she had an orgasm. Then he got up.

“Turn around,” he said. “Hands and knees.”

She obliged. He took a condom from the bedside drawer and undid his belt. That was another thing that was better in a relationship, you didn’t have to use condoms. It was one of Niima’s non-negotiable rules, but he wouldn’t have wanted to bend it anyway. Aside from the health risk, he found the idea of getting anyone pregnant horrifying. 

He slicked himself up with more lube from a bottle and then he kneeled behind her on the bed. She moaned softly as he pressed himself inside her. Her ass was tight and warm. He gripped her hips and moved his own, thrusting into her. Then, after a little while, he wound one hand into her hair and pulled her head back. 

She was making a very good impression of liking it, breathing fast and moaning in the back of her throat. 

“What’s your real name?” he asked.

“Margot.”

“No, tell me your real name.”

For a moment she said nothing, then:

“Anna.”

That was most likely a lie too.

“Touch yourself, Anna,” he said.

She moved one hand to between her legs. He kept going until she came again and then he let go and came himself. He held on to the condom as he pulled out.

“You can get dressed,” he said. 

He stepped into the bathroom to throw away the condom and clean up. When he returned she had almost finished putting her clothes back on. He saw her to the door.

“Bye,” she said with a smile as she stepped outside. 

He returned to his room, but instead of feeling as if he had released a pressure, or scratched an itch, or however you wanted to phrase it, he felt curiously empty. And it wasn’t just because she was a call-girl, whom he knew nothing about, and who didn’t know him for that matter. 

He pressed his fingers to his forehead, as if he could physically stop the realization from emerging, but it didn’t help. Maybe because he already knew, he just didn’t want to admit it. None of his previous experiences, not even the sex he’d had with women he knew and whom he had been attracted to, could compare to how it had felt to bend Ben over.


	23. Chapter 23

It was hard to say whether or not Finn and Rose noticed that something was amiss. Ben behaved in an orderly fashion, at least. He was his princely self. But at the end of the evening Armitage was exhausted, so he was far from pleased when Ben came at him and accused him of delusions of grandeur.

“Can we not do this now?” he said.

“Tell me how you would pull that off. Uniting ten nations under one rule, in our lifetime.”

“It was an intellectual experiment. Which, by the way, everyone seemed to understand except you.”

“You are getting above yourself.” 

Armitage glared at him. He wanted to throttle him. And he was not in the mood for having this conversation! It was like living with a crazy person. Maybe Ben actually was crazy. That would explain so much. 

“It’s funny,” Armitage said, “you trying to be so high and mighty, when you clearly have a penchant for being on the bottom of things.”

Ben’s gaze darkened. “Fuck you.”

“No, I fucked you.”

They stared at each other, in anger, but then Ben did this tiny thing. He swallowed. Like he was remembering what that had felt like and Armitage was thinking about it too, despite the fact that he didn’t want to. 

“That was a mistake,” Ben said hotly.

“Clearly.”

“Normal people don’t talk about creating vassal states at the dinner table!”

“You can stay here and shout at the furniture, I’m going to bed.”

Armitage turned towards his bedroom.

“You’re not even head of state!” Ben yelled after him.

Not yet, Armitage thought, and part of him wanted to turn around and shout that back at Ben, but he could hear how childish that would sound spoken out loud. 

The next day was a Sunday. That didn’t mean there wasn’t any work to do, but it could be handled from home, in Armitage’s opinion. He was awake, but had not yet gotten out of bed when his phone rang. He picked it up from the bedside table. Brendol’s name lit up the screen. What did that old bastard want?

Armitage considered not picking up. He could conceivably still be asleep, or busy doing any number of things which meant he couldn’t answer, but then he did anyway.

“Yes?” he said. 

“Akiva is starting up with their damn import-export fees again.”

“The matter is under revision with the Senate. The ruling will be that it’s an attempt to circumvent the rules regarding duty-free trade within the Republic…”

“We can’t wait for the Senate to get around to the damn vote. Alderaan exports a great deal of food to Akiva…”

“Alderaan exports food to everyone.”

“Shut up and listen. Alderaan need to lean on Akiva. Get Prince Ben on it.”

“Why don’t you talk to Leia?”

Brendol made an impatient noise. “That damn woman…” He didn’t bother finishing the sentence. “What’s the bloody point of you being there in Hosnian if you’re not gonna earn your keep? I’m assuming you meet with him anyway.”

Armitage clenched his jaw. “Fine,” he said then. 

Brendol hung up and Armitage let the phone drop onto the sheet. 

When the carefully laid plans involving Carise Sindian imploded and it became clear what Armitage would have to do, he had balked at the idea. He couldn’t pretend to be gay! Brendol’s exact words had been: ‘If you claiming to be a faggot for a few months is what it takes to secure this alliance, then you’re going to do it.’ 

What Brendol failed to realize, or chose not to acknowledge, was that it wasn’t just for a few months. Armitage was stuck in this marriage for the rest of his life. Right now there was exactly three people in the whole world who knew he was in fact not gay, and one of them was the man he was married to. 

I’m assuming you meet with him anyway. They lived in the same house for Christ’s sake!

Armitage picked up his phone again and typed out a text. _Can you lean on Akiva, to make them drop their import-export fees?_

There was no reply. Maybe Ben was still asleep. Armitage got up and took a shower. When he came out of the shower again he had received a text. _Why?_ What kind of inane question was that? _I thought that was obvious._ He started getting dressed, then his phone buzzed again. _It’s being reviewed. Vote will go through._ He already knew that!

They did live in the same house, but Armitage had thought he might be able to avoid seeing Ben today. He was sick of his terrible temper. Sick of his sulking face. Sick of being stuck here in this damn house. _Just do it_ he wrote back. The reply came a moment later. _No._

Armitage threw his phone onto the bed in frustration. It bounced and ended up on the floor. From where he had to pick it up. The screen had survived at least. But Ben was driving him completely and utterly up the wall. He was being contrary, any chance he got, just because he could. He even made Phasma leave. Armitage wished he would just go away. 

And then of course there was another part of him that didn’t want Ben to go away at all, but instead wanted to do completely different things with him. He hated that part. 

He didn’t have any overly romanticized notions of what a marriage was supposed to be like, but he hadn’t pictured it as a constant fight, day in and day out. He had actually been pleased when he arrived in Alderaan to discover that Ben seemed to be of a similar mind regarding so many political issues. Working with him had been rather fun, actually. 

If only he hadn’t lost his temper the evening before the wedding… But Ben would have found out sooner or later and they would have ended up right here anyway. Or did he have to find out? If Armitage had kept his mouth shut, would they just have gone on in the same vein? Working together, having sex…

Yes, it had been a lie, but it had also been remarkably close to what Armitage had imagined, on such occasions when he had imagined what he might want for himself. A partnership, working side by side with someone whom you were also sleeping with. Of course, he had never pictured that person as a man.

He wasn’t gay. He was thirty-four years old, he would have known if he was. People didn’t just suddenly turn gay, the idea was preposterous. Not even Prince Ben of Alderaan had that much power. So why couldn’t he, Armitage, stop thinking about it?! 

He turned his head and saw that it was snowing outside. The wall his bed was placed against was all glass and big flakes were drifting past it, more and more of them appeared the longer he looked. He stared for what was probably a longer time than a bit of snow warranted. He had seen snow before, of course, but never from his bedroom window.


	24. Chapter 24

_Leia_

There was snow in Hosnian, which gave Leia a chance to try her new winter boots. She liked walking and tried to walk as often as possible, because she had a bit of a weakness for chocolate.

The park surrounding The Concord was a good place for a walk, it was fenced in and secure, so her guards could trail some distance behind her. By asking them to park by the gatehouse she got a few minutes of exercise and a little time to herself.

She was only in Hosnian for a brief visit, but she had planned to stop by and see Ben while she was here. But then he called her and asked her to come, before she’d had a chance to call him. That had surprised her. 

The snow crunched beneath her feet, but they were still warm and dry. These boots were good. 

She thought of Christmas holidays spent in a cabin in the mountains. Han wasn’t all that enthusiastic about skiing, it wasn’t something he’d done on the dry, flat plains of Corellia in his youth, but he had learned because she loved it, and Ben loved it too. She remembered his smiling face, his cheeks red, and his hair soaking wet with sweat when she took his hat and clothes off in the evenings to put him in the bath.

She reached the wide, double doors at the front of the Senate building and stomped her feet before she went inside. She had been here many, many, many times. She had been here as a girl even, when her mother was Queen and her father served as Senator. 

The building hadn’t changed much since then, except the offices of the various nations had been moved around, so the office Ben had now was not the same one she had visited with her father. 

Ben’s new assistant was seated by a desk outside. What was her name again? Leia cast around for it, remembering people’s names was a matter of respect. Connix!

The girl stood up and curtsied when she saw her. “Your Majesty.”

“Connix.” Leia smiled. “Is he in?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Leia knocked before she opened the door. 

Ben was seated behind his desk and looked up from a pile of papers.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi.”

“Busy?”

“No, come in.”

She closed the door and looked around. 

“I can’t decide if I like that one or not,” she said, nodding at the portrait of herself that hung on the wall next to him.

He turned and looked at it as if he had never seen it before. 

“It’s okay,” he said. 

She sat down in the visitor’s chair. He closed his laptop and moved the papers he had been reading aside. Something was up. She could see it in the tenseness of his shoulders. He threw a glance at her.

“You know Larma D’Acy?” he finally said.

Of course she knew. D’Acy had been his assistant for more than ten years.

“Yes.”

He exhaled. 

“She’s pregnant.”

It took a moment for that to sink it. The meaning behind it. The reason he was telling her.

Of all the reckless, idiotic, stupid decisions…

“Jesus Christ, Ben!”

He wasn’t meeting her gaze. 

“What were you thinking?”

He didn’t reply. He hadn’t been thinking, obviously. 

And with D’Acy of all people. Leia had a hard time wrapping her head around that. D’Acy was an excellent assistant, but truth be told, not the type one would think of as an irresistible temptation. Not to mention that she was at least ten years older than him. And he was gay!

“How could you be so stupid? You’re almost thirty years old!”

He was looking at some unspecified spot on his desk. He was ashamed? Well, he should be. 

“I don’t know what to do,” he said. 

His gaze flickered briefly to her face. He was scared. She could see it in his eyes.

She took a deep breath. There was no point in raging at him now. 

“When did you find out?” she asked.

“The day before yesterday. She called me.”

“Has she told anyone else?”

He shook his head. 

“She’s married, isn’t she?” Leia asked.

“Yeah. She said she hasn’t told her wife that it’s… that it was me, but she has probably figured that out.”

That was a marriage that most likely wasn’t going to last much longer. 

“How far along is she?” 

He was quiet for a few seconds. Doing the math, perhaps.

“About three months.”

“I’m assuming she’s planning to keep it, since she told you. Did she say why?”

“Yeah, she said she wanted children, and given her age…”

“Do you think she did it on purpose?”

“No. She took a morning after pill, but it didn’t work.”

He seemed sure of that at least. 

“Does Armitage know?” Leia asked.

“No.”

“Good. Keep it that way.”

He shot her another look. 

Of all the problems she had thought might arise, unexpected turn of events, unforeseen circumstances, Ben fathering a bastard had been at the very bottom of the list. She hadn’t even considered it something she needed to worry about, not since he came out as gay. 

But he wasn’t the first prince or king to find himself in this situation. Nor would he be the last. 

She didn’t like the term ‘bastard’, though. That implied it was somehow the child’s fault, that he or she were to blame. There was no shame in being born.

She looked at Ben. 

“You can never acknowledge this child,” she said. 

He nodded a little. 

“And I strongly recommend that you never see it,” she said. “That might seem callous, but in the long run it will spare everyone involved a lot of pain.”

He didn’t say anything.

“We will make sure that he or she is well taken cared of, D’Acy too,” Leia went on. “And we’ll keep this between as few people as possible. I’m going to tell Amilyn, and she will handle the practicalities.”

He took what looked like a shaky breath. The fact that he didn’t find this easy was fundamentally a good thing, she knew that. There were men who fathered children left and right and never even stopped to think about it, didn’t care. But in this situation, it was vital he didn’t do anything stupid. 

“Ben.”

He turned his gaze to her. 

“Let it go,” she said. “Put all of this behind you. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

“Yes.”

“Have a child with Armitage.”

He seemed to flinch. 

Something was not right between them. She had noticed at the wedding, but she had hoped it was just nerves on the big day. They had seemed to get along before that and over the course of summer Ben appeared to have reconciled himself with the idea of getting married. 

“Are you two having problems?” she asked.

The fact that he had slept with his assistant was a pretty big indicator.

He didn’t reply. 

“Ben…”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But you are going to talk about it. Because you made a very bad decision and you can’t afford to make bad decisions like that.”

The look he gave her was mutinous. 

“Are you and Armitage having problems?” she asked again.

“What are you even going to do?”

“Help you.”

“You can’t help me!”

There were married couples who detested each other. She knew a few. But there were also those who actually fell in love. But no matter where they fell on the scale, they had to make it work. 

Leia looked down at her hands for a moment. 

“Is it to do with intimacy?” she asked. 

That was a reasonable guess, considering the situation they were currently in. With no pressure to conceive an heir the old-fashioned way, there was no actual need for intimacy, but people were still people, with expectations and hopes, and needs.

Ben looked like he was not planning to speak. 

“If you don’t want to talk to me, you can talk to Dad.”

He scoffed. 

“He doesn’t care that you’re gay.”

It was quiet for a moment. Eventually Leia sighed. 

“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “Maybe the only person who can help you is you. You’re a grown man. Make it work.”

If he wouldn’t talk, there was not much else she could say.


	25. Chapter 25

_Armitage_

Armitage saw the headlights of the car as it came around the curve in the driveway. They glowed brightly in the darkness. He had been pacing in his home office, but now he turned abruptly towards the front hall. He was going to kill him!

Ben had just closed the door and seemed barely to have registered that Armitage was even there, before Armitage had slapped him across the face, hard enough to make his head jerk to the side.

“You slut!”

Ben looked bewildered, more than anything else. Armitage distantly observed that he did not raise his hands to hit back, nor did he touch his cheek, which sort of indicated he had been slapped before. 

“You slept with your assistant?” Armitage spat.

Ben’s mouth fell open. 

“And got her pregnant?”

Maybe Ben looked ashamed, Armitage wasn’t sure, he was too furious to fully take notice. That dried up fig of a woman! The man had an Oedipus complex the size of a continent!

“Are you mentally deficient?”

Ben swallowed. “How did you know?”

“How do you think? I have a tap on your phone.”

Armitage had arranged that a while ago. He was the only one with access to the material. But there had never been anything of note, and Armitage hadn’t even bothered to keep up with it regularly. That’s why that phone call was almost a week old by the time he heard it.

“What?” 

“You are completely out of control!”

Ben’s eyes were dark. “You fucking asshole!”

Armitage grabbed his jaw, fingers digging into his cheeks. “How dare you?”

Ben pushed his arm away, but for once he seemed to be out of words.

“You are married to me!” Armitage was right up in his face. “Do you understand?”

Ben’s eyes were wide and dark, angry and confused. Armitage grabbed his head and clashed their mouths together. There was no finesse, it could barely even be called a kiss. He half expected Ben to pull away, but he didn’t. Lips and teeth and tongue. Armitage felt out of breath. 

He wasn’t sure if he pushed him, or if Ben dropped to his knees of his own accord. Their hands got in the way of each other as they both tried to undo Armitage’s belt. Armitage felt his penis swell, so rapidly that by the time his trousers were unzipped, he was all but fully erect. And then Ben’s mouth was on him. Warm and wet and soft.

For a brief while he let Ben do as he pleased, but then he pushed his fingers into Ben’s hair and held his head as he fucked into his mouth. God, that felt good. More than good. He didn’t bother to make it last, he just let the pleasure build, and then he forced himself all the way into Ben’s mouth and came down his throat.

Ben coughed and gasped for breath when he let go of him. His eyes were wet. His cheek was red from where Armitage had hit him and his hair was messy. But there was a telltale bulge in his jeans. He looked amazing. 

Armitage tucked himself back inside his trousers. It was very quiet. The staff had all gone home for the day, thank god. This was not how he had imagined this confrontation would go and he didn’t know what to say now. Ben got to his feet. He looked like he didn’t know what to say either. 

A part of Armitage felt appalled by the fact that he had stepped into this territory, again. Another part of him felt quite the opposite. This was his house, his marriage. His bloody husband. He could, and should, do whatever he pleased. 

“I trust that assistant and her bastard are being handled discreetly?” he said.

Ben shot him a dark look. “Yes,” he bit out.

“Good. I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

Ben didn’t say anything else. Was he ashamed? He should be ashamed, he had cheated. Technically, so had Armitage, but that was a different matter. 

To tell the truth, Armitage had surprised himself by how utterly furious it had made him to learn that Ben had slept with someone else. 

But perhaps this made them even. A lie for a lie.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Armitage said and then he turned and headed towards his bedroom.

But sleep wouldn't come and he got up again. It was cold outside and he had to get dressed to have a cigarette, but he thought it was worth it.

He stepped out onto the balcony. It was really cold. The garden was dark, but the snow made it light enough to make out shades and shapes. There were guards out there in the shadows, stationed along the perimeter, but he didn't see them. Others were doing whatever it was they did in the gatehouse.

He thought of Ben and his attempts to limit the number of cigarettes he smoked. Another sign of his lack of self-control. Then that led to thoughts of that woman and Armitage abruptly stopped that line of thought.

He walked the length of the balcony to stay warm. From the far end he could see a sliver of Ben's bedroom window. The glass was reflective so he could not actually see inside, but he could tell that the lights were on. Apparently Ben couldn't sleep either.

He finished his cigarette and went back inside.

**

When Armitage’s alarm rang the next morning the rising sun was painting the walls in his bedroom a golden yellow. He got up and took a shower, then dressed in a three-piece suit and a blue shirt. Most of his shirts were white, there was a reason that was a classic, but he had a few others for variety.

Peavey was waiting for him on the landing outside his bedroom, holding a tablet.

“Good morning,” Armitage said.

“Good morning, Sir. There are a couple of messages that I believe need to be prioritized, I’ve marked them for you.”

“Thank you. Anything else?”

“No, Sir, not at this moment.”

“Well, it’s still early.”

Peavey smiled a little. “Yes, Sir.”

Armitage headed down to the dining room. He popped his head into the kitchen to give the staff a couple of extra instructions and then he took a seat by the dining table. He really was a creature of habit; he had sat in the same seat for every meal, ever since the move here. Well, there was no reason not to.

The maid served him coffee and he started reading the messages Peavey had marked, then he clicked open the morning paper. There was a physical paper on the table, but Armitage prefered the electronic versions. 

Ben showed up a short while later. Armitage didn’t let it show, but he had hoped he would, rather than sending Connix with instructions for a tray to be brought to his room. 

“Ah,” Armitage said. “I told them to make an English breakfast for you. I hope that is all right.”

Ben eyed the seat to Armitage’s right, where the table had been set for one more person. He looked a little surprised, perhaps a little wary, but then he took a seat.

“That’s fine,” he said.

Armitage held back a sigh of relief. It was an olive branch, or intended as one, and he'd hoped Ben would have sense enough to take it, but he had been far from sure. 

The maid came and placed a plate of eggs and bacon and whatnot in front of Ben, and poured him coffee, then retreated to the kitchen. Armitage didn’t know what to say and he kept his gaze on his tablet, trying to focus on the article he was reading. After a moment Ben reached for the paper on the table. 

To say that they were having breakfast in companionable silence would have been an exaggeration, but it was silence, rather than yelling. Ben poured himself a second cup of coffee. 

Armitage glanced over and saw that Ben was doing the crossword puzzle. He had seen him do that before, with remarkable speed. Armitage had been rather impressed, actually. Of course, Ben did have a degree in Continental Literature. Exactly why someone in his position chose to study that was a mystery. 

“You need to remove the tap on my phone,” Ben said.

He turned his gaze to Armitage. Armitage gave a nod. 

“How can I trust that you’ll do it?” Ben said.

Perhaps that was a fair point. Although Armitage wanted to say that if Ben hadn’t been so irrational, there wouldn’t have been a need for it in the first place, but he kept that to himself. 

Also, Armitage wouldn’t have known, Ben would never have told him… No, he was not going to think any more about that. 

“I give you my word,” he said, “that it will be removed today.”

Ben kept his gaze on him. “I’ll have it checked,” he said.

“Of course.”

As it happened, Armitage was planning on keeping his word. 

He waited, reading another paper, while Ben finished his breakfast.

**

Ben had delivered the speech flawlessly in front of the Senate. Armitage had written about half of it, but they had decided that Ben should be the one to address the Senate on the day of the vote.

Armitage gazed around the room. It was a large, circular hall, all dark oak panels and a frescoed ceiling. Each Senator had his or her designated seat with a small desk that also served as a rostrum whenever one addressed the Senate. 

Since it was a large space and many of the people there had quite good poker faces it was difficult to gauge which way the room was leaning. He felt optimistic, though. Not certain, that would have been preferable, but it just wasn’t possible, not when it came to the important votes. 

But they had worked on this since before they got here, and other people had worked on it for even longer. Although, he felt he and Ben had done a better job than anyone else could have. Even in spite of all the unpleasantries since the wedding. Collaboration had been rather difficult, but they had managed and they had maintained the facade, too. No one but the two of them knew how disruptive the past few months had been. 

In his weaker moments Armitage had felt almost as he did as a child. The same shame over what was going on in his own home and the desperate need to keep it under wraps. 

Over the past few days, in the run-up to the vote, they had been polite to each other. Their conversations had revolved almost exclusively around Proposition 407. Neither of them had acknowledged what had happened in the front hall. 

But now was not the time to dwell on that. Ben had made an excellent speech and the time to vote had come. Armitage could practically feel the tension emanating from Sloane, who was sitting behind him. He observed some of the senators discussing fervently with their aides. The voting was done electronically, of course, but out of tradition, and because monarchs had a penchant for dramatic flair, those in favor of a proposition would stand up.

Ben remained standing, hands stuck casually into the pockets of his trousers and looking for all intents and purposes as if he expected the whole room to rise before him. God, he was good. 

Armitage pressed the green button in front of him and stood up. At the same time Lady Jannah, the senator from Kef Bir, rose. Next was Princess Paige of Hayes Minor and Hela Brandes, the senator from Naboo. Those three had been guaranteed. Armitage also wasn’t surprised to see King Beaumont of Lerct get to his feet. Everything had suggested he might be sympathetic and therefore they had included him quite heavily in their lobbying. 

More people were rising. General Pryde, Count Dooku, Lady Mellowyn. But far from everyone was getting to their feet. Armitage was counting silently in his head. Damn, it was going to be narrow… He finished counting just as the result appeared on the screens. The proposition had passed. He couldn’t keep a small smile from curving his lips. 

Protests erupted in the room and several of those who had remained seated got to their feat. Loudest were Nute Gunray from Neimoidia and Isstra Dirus of Akiva. 

“This is an outrage!”

“Foreign thugs will not violate the sovereign borders of Neimoidia!”

Shout all you want, Armitage thought. We won. 

The chairman called for order, but it had little effect. Since the vote had been the only thing on the agenda today, there was no reason to stay and listen to these pathetic little men, so Armitage turned to leave.

“Well done, Sir,” Sloane said as they left the chamber. 

In the hall outside people were milling about. Ben was on the phone and judging from how he sounded, and the things he said, he was talking to his mother. 

Armitage’s phone remained silent. He had not expected otherwise. If Brendol had decided to call him it would only have been to say that they needed to ensure they gained significant control over the new Republic anti-terrorism task force. Armitage didn’t need Brendol to tell him that. And this wasn’t Brendol’s doing, it wasn’t his win. Armitage had done it all. Well, he and Ben. 

Ben hung up and Jannah approached them, a wide smile on her face. 

“His Majesty King Finn sends his regards,” she said. “This is cause for a celebration.”

“There is still a lot of work to be done,” Armitage said.

“Oh, come on, Prince Armitage, a few drinks is in order, don’t you think?”

“Ah, well, when you put it that way.”

She laughed and turned to the others. “Everyone game?” she asked. 

“Absolutely,” Beaumont said.

“Yes, I’m in,” Paige said. 

Ben turned to Hela Brandes. “Will you join us?”

“Thank you, but I think it’s for the younger people,” she said.

“Then you fit right in,” he replied.

He said it with easy authority and she smiled.

“Of course you must come,” Paige said. 

“Yes, of course,” Jannah said. “I meant all of us.”

Hela acquiesced and they went to a bar downtown, had a few drinks, talking and laughing. The win in the Senate, which was the main topic of conversation, meant everyone was in a good mood, including him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Ben smile. 

There was the public image to uphold, so they behaved accordingly, performing for their audience, but even so, whenever Ben looked at him there seemed to be a kind of question behind his eyes, as if he were wondering where they stood. Armitage wondered that himself.


	26. Chapter 26

_Ben_

There was nearly two feet of snow in Theed and from a distance the Royal Palace looked like a miniature trapped inside a snow globe. The drive from Naboo International Airport had taken longer than usual and lights were twinkling to life in the many windows when we stopped in the courtyard, below the stairs leading up to the entrance. 

Armitage and I got out of the car. The steps had been swept clean and the moment we reached the top of them, the great doors were pulled open by the guards stationed on either side. 

We were greeted in the brightly lit entrance hall by Threepio, my mother’s assistant. 

“Welcome to Naboo, Sirs,” he said with a bow.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Thank you,” Armitage said. 

He sounded as if he had a head cold. Maybe he did. I didn’t feel so great either. 

Threepio smiled. 

“I am afraid there have been some unfortunate events,” he said. “There has been a water leak and your suite, Prince Ben, is not habitable at the moment. I do apologize. But, we have prepared Amidala’s suite instead, I hope that will be satisfactory.”

I waited for Amitage to say something, to protest, ask for his own suite, but he didn’t. 

For those in our house in Hosnian, the staff and our assistants, the fact that we didn’t sleep in the same bed was pretty damn obvious, but I guessed he didn’t want anyone in my mother’s court, including perhaps the Queen herself, to know. Keeping up appearances. 

I might have resented him for it, but truth was I didn’t want any uncomfortable questions either, so I said nothing. Silently I wondered, though. Would we share the bed? Or was one of us going to sleep on the couch?

Threepio led the way, even though I was perfectly capable of making my way around the palace myself. We had never lived in Naboo, but we had spent at least a few weeks here every year when I was growing up.

“The Queen and Captain Solo will arrive tomorrow morning,” Threepio said. He prattled on, but I barely listened. I really wasn’t feeling good. 

The suite consisted of a drawing room with a couple of couches and a bedroom with dark blue walls. There was a Christmas tree with golden ornaments in the drawing room. 

I stretched out on one of the couches. Connix and Peavey arrived with our bags. I looked at stuff on my phone for a while, but then even that felt as if it demanded too much energy. I took my shoes off and then I closed my eyes.

**

"Ben?"

Someone was shaking my shoulder. I opened my eyes to a much darker room. Armitage was standing next to me.

"What?" 

My whole body ached and I felt cold. I wanted to go back to sleep. Shit, I was sick.

"I have a fever," he said. "You probably do too. Here."

He held out something to me. A pill. I took it and then the water glass he held out next. 

"Thanks," I said and dropped my head back down on the pillow.

**

I slept.

**

The doctor showed up at some point. He said I had the flu. I felt as if I had the flu.

**

I had to pee. I felt weak, as if my body had been utterly depleted, and my head was foggy. Sticky, horrible fever dreams clung to me like spiderwebs.

Armitage was asleep in the bed. I thought about lying down next to him when I came out of the bathroom again, more space, more comfortable, but then I went back to the couch. I pulled the blanket over me.

**

_Leia_

Han raised his glass and Leia raised hers.

"Merry Christmas," he said.

"Merry Christmas."

They both took a sip. The wine was dry and seemed to slowly roll and expand across her taste buds. 

Han picked up the deck of cards and expertly shuffled them. A fire crackled in the open fireplace next to them; Leia could feel the soft warmth against her side. 

"Some Christmas, huh?" Han said as he dealt the cards. "Kids conked out..."

Leia smiled.

"It's not so bad," she said. "You and me, some wine and sabacc."

He smiled back. "Yeah, of course. It's just… you know. We finally get to see him for a few days and he gets the damn flu."

"I know."

She picked up her cards. It was quiet for a moment as they both studied their hands.

She had been up to see Ben earlier. He had looked at her with glassy eyes for a few seconds, but then gone back to sleep. She'd felt an urge to help him out of his jeans and sweater, so he'd be more comfortable, but he was far too big for her to be able to do that. She knew she was being silly, but there was some truth to what people said; they never really stopped being small in your eyes.

After hesitating about it for a moment she had checked on Armitage too. She wasn't his mother and it felt intrusive, but at the same time it would have seemed unfair, perhaps even callous, not to. He had been asleep when she popped her head into the bedroom and she had felt relieved. What would she even have said? He was a grown man and all but a complete stranger to her.

She played a card and Han groaned. She smiled triumphantly.

"Well, if that's how you want to play… I won't go easy on you, just so you know."

"Let the best woman win."

They played for a while, taking it far too seriously and talking very little.

Her thoughts wandered here and there of their own accord. A thought, almost more of a feeling, entered her head. And then it expanded, unfolded itself.

Seeing Ben and Armitage asleep in different rooms. Yes, they were both sick, but still. Something about Brendol Hux and the uncouth comments that he let slip when he didn't watch his mouth. Ben's complete and utter refusal to talk about what had gone wrong between him and Armitage. The importance of this alliance, for both nations. 

Armitage was not gay. 

Once the thought was there, in her mind, it would not go away. It had been rather convenient, Grand General Hux's own son. But she hadn't questioned it. A whole bunch of nations had dropped out of the race, while others had introduced new potential spouses, like Arkanis did. It didn't stand out, not then.

Perhaps her own prejudices had played a part, too. This slim, utterly correct, utterly polite, well-dressed young man. She'd found it easy to believe he was gay, even though Ben was nothing like that. 

It made sense. The more she thought about it, the more she believed she was right. And Ben knew. Of course he did.

The cruelty of the deception made her blood boil. She had wanted Ben to have a shot at a normal marriage! The same chance others in his position, forced to make political matches, had! But Arkanis, and those fucking Huxes, had stolen that. How dared they?

She opened her mouth to say something to Han, but stopped herself at the last moment. It wasn't her truth to tell. 

"You alright there, honey?" Han said.

He must have seen something on her face.

"Yes," she said, although her heart felt suddenly very heavy. "Just something on my mind. I need to think on it a while longer."

"Okay."

You can't help me, Ben had said. And he was right. Divorce was not an option. She could go ahead and tell Brendol and Armitage exactly what she thought of them, but it might do more harm than good.

**

_Ben_

At long last I was able to sit up and have something that at least resembled coherent thoughts. My fever had broken.

A maid brought a tray with two bowls of soup and Armitage exited the bedroom. He was wearing a robe and his hair was uncombed. 

"Change the sheets, please," Armitage said to the maid.

"Yes, Sir."

He took a seat on the couch opposite me. I tried the soup. It was okay. I felt both hungry and lacking appetite at the same time.

"Do you feel better?" I asked Armitage. 

He nodded.

I ate some more soup. It was quiet.

"I'm gonna take a shower," I said after a while.

I had to, because I felt filthy and stinking, as if I had been stewing in my own sweat.

Armitage nodded. "Me too. But you go first."

I hesitated. "My back can't take another night on the couch."

"That's fine." 

"I don't mind sharing." 

I got up. He could take the offer or stay on the couch. I didn't have the energy for a discussion either way. 

It felt heavenly to peel off my grimy clothes and wash, but as soon as I was done I was exhausted and only wanted to lie down again. I headed for the bed, dropped the towel on the floor and got in under the cover. 

Armitage showed up after a little while, took something out of the closet and disappeared into the bathroom. I heard the water run, then turn off again. Shortly thereafter he came out, wearing a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. He got into bed and turned on the TV, the sound turned down low. 

I was grateful for the distraction. 

"Are you naked?" he said after a little while.

I sighed. "Yeah."

I felt a twinge of annoyance, but also something else. Hurt, maybe. I'd had his dick in my mouth, very recently, but he couldn't lie there, a feet and a half away, if I wasn't wearing any clothes? 

But I still didn't know what that scene in the front hall had been exactly. Jealousy? It had felt like it, but he had told me he wasn't gay. 

He didn't say anything else and we watched TV in silence. 

I dozed off and when I woke up it was dark outside the windows. My internal clock had gone completely haywire. The TV was still on, but Armitage appeared to be asleep, his back turned to me. 

The next time I woke up the room was bathed in light. I couldn't be sure, but I thought it might be morning. The light had that pale, thin quality to it. I felt movement next to me and the next thing I knew, Armitage had pulled my hand to his hard cock.

He had fucking problems. Part of me didn't want to, he was an asshole, and he didn't fucking ask either. But another part of me thought it was a pretty great idea and that part sent blood running southwards. 

I closed my hand around him. He was hot and smooth in my hand. But when I took his wrist and tried to get him to touch me in return, he pulled his arm away.

I stared at him in disbelief. And I let go of his penis.

"You want me to just get you off?" I said. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

He was using me. For whatever fucked up reasons.

"I'll do it," he said, "if you wear a condom."

"What the fuck for?"

Then it hit me. I had slept with someone else, unprotected.

"She was clean," I said. 

"I told you never to mention that woman again!"

We glared at each other. I looked away first. 

"It's not that," he said after a moment, his voice level now. "I would prefer not to get your semen on me."

I turned my gaze back to him. "Why?"

"I don't like it."

I dropped my head back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. 

"It's nothing personal," he said.

"It feels pretty fucking personal! Why should I want to do anything with you, when you think everything about me is disgusting?!"

I didn't want to do this anymore. Any of it. I wanted out of this fucking joke of a marriage. But there was no way out.

"I don't think that," he said after another pause.

"That's what you said!"

"That wasn't entirely true."

"Fuck you." I felt, horribly, on the verge of tears.

"As it happens," he said. "I don't care for vaginas either."

It was quiet for a moment. 

There was something very wrong with him. He had clearly done anal before. That's what he liked, then? But he was disturbed. It was one thing to like anal, another thing to claim not to like vaginas. For a straight man, at least.

Wear a condom. Aside from when I slept with D'Acy, I'd always used condoms when I fucked someone. Did it matter? 

No, I wasn't going to be that desperate. 

"My cum isn't any different from yours," I said.

"I know that. It's just…"

"What?"

"I don't like it. It's… produced inside your body. It's just…"

He might have been about to say 'disgusting' but stopped himself. 

I was married to this fucking headcase. 

"Have you ever had sex with a guy before?" I asked.

"No, but like I said…"

"You don't like vaginas either. Has it ever occured to you that you're insane?"

He gave me a flat stare. 

"No," he said. "Do you want to have sex or not?"

"Fine."

I did. I was probably insane for wanting to, but I did. Besides, it was just sex. It didn't mean anything, I knew that perfectly well.

I got up and when I did I noticed I was still a little wobbly on my feet. I'd felt fine when I was still lying down. I fetched a condom.

This time when I got back into bed I kissed him and he kissed me back. I got hard again and I rolled the condom onto my erection. His grip was firm, but not too firm, just the amount of pressure I liked. 

"I wanna fuck you," he said after a while. 

I hadn't really had that in mind, it seemed like too much effort, but now that he said it I thought that sounded really nice.

"Okay," I said.

He got up this time, to get the lube. I told him there was a bottle in my toiletry bag. 

"Turn around," he said when he came back.

"Let's do it this way."

He paused.

"It feels better for me like this," I said.

"You seemed to like it fine the other times."

"Yeah, but…" I didn't want to argue with him. I wanted to fuck and then possibly go back to sleep. "Fine."

I began to turn around, but he took my arm.

"No, it's fine," he said. "Lie back."

I did and grabbed one of the pillows and put it under my ass.

"This is better for you?" he asked.

"Yeah." I looked at him. Did he care? Was any of this about anything other than his own pleasure? But it seemed he cared enough to not insist on doing it from behind, because when I pulled my knees up, he knelt between my legs. I felt his warm thighs against my ass cheeks when he shuffled closer.

He slid his hands up my thighs and I shuddered, partly in anticipation, but also from the touch itself. He reached down to guide his cock right and then he was pushing into me. 

He set a steady pace, neither slow nor overly fast. It felt really good, his strokes hitting the right spot too. One of his hands was in the crook of my left knee, pushing my leg out of the way.

I liked this position because it really was more pleasurable a lot of the time, but also because I liked the intimacy of seeing the person I was doing it with. And Armitage kept looking right at me. He looked amazing, so handsome, so sexy. He felt amazing too.

After a while I started jerking myself off. It was kind of weird that I was wearing a condom when he wasn't, but whatever. I was sweating. It felt really awesome. But maybe because I was thinking too much, or maybe because I had literally just been sick, I didn't come. 

We had been at it for some time now. I realized I might be the beneficiary of what appeared to be a pretty remarkable climax-control on his part. Or maybe he just wasn't that into it. 

I shouldn't care. I should just take advantage. But then I asked anyway.

"Do you like it?" 

He nodded.

"You don't want me to turn around?" 

"I want to see you come on my cock."

Okay. I very much wanted that too.

"I might not," I said. "It feels great, it's just, I don't know, maybe it's because I've been sick…"

"Yes, you will."

I looked up at him. He was just going to keep going until I came? Actually, I believed he would. And the thought was pretty damn hot.

"You should see yourself," he said.

I was pretty sure I did not want to see myself. I probably looked like a complete idiot. I could feel a few sweaty strands of hair, clinging to my forehead.

"Don't close your eyes," he said. 

I turned my gaze back to him. He was sweating too. 

"Do you wanna come?" he said.

"Yes."

"What are you willing to do, to come?"

This was one of his games, the kind of thing he'd done the other two times.

"Anything," I said, feeling oddly daring when I said it.

"Would you beg?"

"Yes."

"Would you promise to never play with yourself again?"

It shouldn't have been so fucking hot, but it was and I felt a tightening in my groin.

"Yes."

"Beg me to fuck you?"

"Yes."

"Cede your titles and give me the throne?"

"Yes."

"Let me come in your face?"

"Yes."

"Do you want me to come in your face?"

"Yes."

"Say it."

Fuck, it felt so fucking good, I was so close.

"Which? Oh, god. I want you to come in my face."

And then I came. The rush as my penis filled, and a second later the throbbing pulse of pleasure as I ejaculated. 

He came a moment later. He pulled out as soon as he was done and lay down next to me.

I caught my breath. I felt absolutely drained. Maybe having sex right after a bout of flu wasn't the brightest of ideas.

We weren't touching, but I rolled over onto my side and put my arm around him. I felt him stiffen. Just as long as he didn't say it, I thought. I didn't want to hear how he would prefer not to cuddle.

And by some miracle he decided not to say anything. He put up with it for about two minutes and then he got up. I pulled the condom off my now flaccid penis, tied a knot on it and dropped it on the floor. Then I leaned back against the pillow again. 

As great as that was, it was just sex. I touched my wedding ring with my left thumb. Sex was better than nothing.

"Do you want breakfast?" Armitage asked when he came out from the bathroom again. 

I nodded.

"I wanna go home," I said.

"We are. We have that dinner on New Year's eve…"

"I wanna go home today. And I don't want to go to the dinner."

"If you're going to start up with your…"

"Just shut up."

I thought of how… well, charming he had been, in his own way, when he was trying to get me to like him. I wanted him to be like that again. I wanted him to like me. I wanted him to be fucking gay, like he had pretended to be. I didn't want to be just a convenient fuck for him and his bizarre tastes.

I got up. "Can you tell them to get the plane ready?" I said. "We're leaving."

He looked a little nonplussed, but at least he didn't argue. I went into the bathroom to take another shower.


	27. Chapter 27

We went to the dinner on New Year’s Eve after all. I had a bit too much to drink and spent the entire evening trying not to think about how hot Armitage looked. Then I blew him in the car on the way home. It was a limousine with a secluded backseat. 

The next day I woke up in my room, alone and a bit hungover. It was my birthday. I lay there feeling sorry for myself for a while, until my phone rang. It was Mom. Actually, it was Mom and Dad on speaker and they sang Happy Birthday to me. It was pretty embarrassing.

“What are you doing today?” Mom asked when they had finally stopped singing.

“I don’t know.”

“No plans?”

“Um… not really. It got pretty late last night.”

“You only turn thirty once,” Dad said. 

“Yeah.”

I had been busy, working on Proposition 407 and, well, everything. Planning for my thirtieth birthday had been pretty low on my list of priorities. 

“I have to be in the Senate tomorrow,” I said, “but I’m going skiing in a few weeks. I’ll probably celebrate then.”

I just made that up. Not the skiing trip, that was true. Snap and I and a few other people were going. 

“Is Armitage going too?” Mom asked.

“No. I don’t know. He doesn’t ski. I don’t know if he’s coming.”

I hadn’t asked him. She was fishing for information. I felt uncomfortable, because I had told her too much already. That I had to confess to the thing with D’Acy was bad enough, but I had let slip that the marriage wasn’t working. I didn’t want her to know, it was personal. The fact that no one knew had been the only small comfort. 

“Did you guys do anything fun for New Year’s?” I asked.

“Are you kidding me?” Dad said. “It was the party of the year.”

“We had dinner with some friends.”

“Yeah, and then by midnight everyone was dancing naked in the throne room.”

“Will you stop it?”

“Yeah, that’s too much information, Dad.”

I was smiling a little despite myself.

“Did you have fun?” Dad asked.

“Yeah. It was a dinner. It was okay. No naked dancing.”

“That’s too bad,” Dad said. 

I did however give my husband a blow-job, but I refrained from telling them that. 

It felt weird to think of Armitage as ‘my husband’. 

“I gotta go,” I said.

“Okay. Take care, will you?” Dad said.

“Yeah.”

“Talk to you soon,” Mom said.

We hung up and I dragged myself out of bed. After a shower, some painkillers and a cigarette I felt a bit better. Maybe coffee would do the rest. 

I went to the kitchen. All the staff, including Peavey and Connix, had the day off, so I made the coffee myself. It turned out a little weak, but it was drinkable. I wondered if Armitage was still sleeping, but then I found him in his study. 

“Are you working?” I asked.

He looked up from his laptop. “Just catching up on a few things. Happy birthday.”

I had wondered if he would say anything. I had no doubt he knew my date of birth. 

“Thank you.”

He looked at me for a few seconds.

“I did get you a birthday present,” he said then, “but you have to promise not to get angry.”

“What kind of birthday present would make me angry?”

I was surprised he’d gotten me anything. I didn’t get him anything for his birthday. He went out to dinner with Phasma to celebrate. Of course, we were on friendlier terms now than we had been then. 

“Well, you’re very unpredictable.”

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

“Why would you get me something that you think would make me angry?” I asked. 

He opened a drawer in his desk and then he got up from his seat. He came around the desk. He had something in his hand and when I held out my hand he dropped it in my palm. 

It was a key. Specifically, it was a car key. For a TIE Silencer. I recognized the logo on the keychain. 

“You got me a car?” I asked, feeling slightly dumbfounded.

“Yes.”

I looked at him. 

“Why?”

“You like cars.”

It was a really nice gift. A bit much, considering the state of things since the wedding. Was he feeling guilty? I had cheated on him, though. It hadn’t felt like cheating, not at the time, but it was. 

“Thank you,” I said. 

“You’re welcome.”

We looked at each other and then I leaned in for a kiss. A gentle one. To say thank you. His beard was a little bristly against my face. He looked slightly uncomfortable afterwards.

“Why did you think I would get angry?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, sounding slightly exasperated. He was lying, I was pretty sure of it; he’d had some thought about how I might get offended, but I didn’t press the issue. I wasn’t offended. 

“Where is it?” I asked.

“In the garage.”

“You didn’t hide it?”

“Where was I suppose to hide it? In a drawer?”

“How long has it been there?”

He smiled. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

I held up the key. “Wanna go for a ride?”

“I don’t think you’re a responsible driver.”

I smiled. 

“You bought it for me, you have to,” I said. 

The car looked awesome. Matte black, which I thought was really cool, and all smooth lines. It wasn’t a small car. I didn’t like too small cars, because I was tall and had big feet. Inside it smelled like leather and new car. Excitement skipped in my stomach.

“You’re not still drunk, are you?” Armitage said.

“No. But if I am, I have diplomatic immunity.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

I had refused to have any guards in the car, so they got into a separate car to follow us. 

It was a dream to drive. Absolutely fucking fantastic. I glanced in the rearview mirror. The guards were behind us, but if I’d wanted to, I would have been able to lose them. I smiled.

“Do you have a hard-on?” Armitage asked.

“No.”

“I think you do.”

I laughed. 

I was hungry and after pestering him about it for a bit, Armitage admitted he was hungry too.

“What about sushi?” I said. 

I pulled up by the curb. There was a sushi place right next to us.

“You want to buy sushi?” Armitage said, sounding perplexed.

“Yeah. Do you like sushi?”

“Yes, except for the fish, of course. You want to buy sushi here?”

“Yeah.”

He gave me an incredulous look. 

“Call the guards,” he said. “Get one of them to do it.”

“No, I’m gonna do it.”

“You can’t…”

“Yes, I can.”

I got out of the car. Rey and Max got out of the car behind us. 

The street was deserted. In fact, it felt as if the whole of Hosnian was sleeping it off after last night. But the sushi place was open, a neon sign in the window told me so.

“Sir?” Rey said in a questioning tone of voice.

“Wait here,” I said. 

I went inside. The place was small, just two tiny tables and a counter. There was a fridge stocked full with soft drinks and knick-knacks were lined up on a shelf on the wall. 

The girl behind the counter smiled.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi.”

I had never done this before. I’d had fast food, but someone else had always gotten it for me.

There was a menu above the counter and I looked up at it. I ordered for myself, and then for Armitage, making sure I kept it all vegetarian. 

“Drink?” the girl asked.

“Yeah, um, two Cokes.”

I wasn’t sure he drank Coke, but it didn’t matter, we had other drinks at home. 

The girl gave me a slightly odd look, but got on with the order. I was wearing a knitted cap, a hoodie and a leather jacket, but I was pretty sure she recognized me. 

A while later she handed me a plastic bag and I handed over a few bills. 

“Excuse me,” she said, “but aren’t you..?”

“Yeah.”

She drew in a sharp breath and her eyes widened. She put a hand over her mouth, staring at me, but smiling, I could see it behind her hand. I smiled a little back at her. 

“Thank you,” I said, hefting the bag and then I left. 

I handed the bag to Armitage when I got back in the car. 

"Was it exciting?" he asked.

"Very." I turned the key in the ignition and the engine purred to life. I loved this car.

Armitage took a peak in the bag.

"Did it look sanitary?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"Clean?"

"I saw no obvious health hazards." I shot him a look. "You have a bit of OCD."

"Not wanting to get food poisoning is a perfectly reasonable concern."

I considered saying something about all the other hang-ups he had, but thought better of it.

I was in a good mood the whole day. It wasn't just about the car, although I was really happy about the car, but the fact that he'd bought me a present, and we hadn't argued for several days.


	28. Chapter 28

“It is simply a matter of resources and experience,” Armitage said.

He was being a voice of reason, but despite that his words were met by a cacophony of protests. 

"Senators," Beaumont said, rising from his seat to speak, "we have to be realistic. The Senate will have oversight, yes, but a certain autonomy for those chosen to run the task force is the only way they will be able to do their jobs. Like General Hux says…"

He was drowned out by Isstra Dirus.

"An Arkanis Captain heading up this task force? We might as well allow a full scale incursion of Arkanis forces!"

There were a few groans and giggles in the rows. Even so, there were others who shared Dirus' reservations, even if they weren’t willing to be so openly paranoid.

"Who do you suggest should handle the day-to-day affairs of the task force then?" Jannah said, standing up. "You, Isstra Dirus?"

There was something slightly scornful in her tone of voice.

Paige rose.

"It is a Republic task force," she said. "The people chosen to run it are Republican citizens. Hayes Minor supports the put forth appointments.”

She sat down again and Hela stood up. “As do Naboo,” she said with a nod in Paige’s direction. “Princess Paige puts it quite succinctly. It is a matter of the best men and women for the jobs.”

Nute Gunray shot out of his seat.

“Why does Naboo even have a seat in the Senate? You’ve been under Alderaanian rule for years, you always vote as they do. And I see quite a lot of others here, who are very eager to blindly follow the lead of Alderaan and Arkanis! Rolling over for a pair of poofs!”

There were cries of outrage throughout the room, but I barely heard them, they were drowned out by the sudden pounding in my ears. I rose and pressed the button controlling the microphone in front of me.

“Naboo has a seat on the Senate since they are a sovereign nation, one I’m proud to serve as Crown Prince. Every Senator here is free to vote however they like, they represent the leaders of their nations. As do you. But if you ever bring up my personal life again, in any way, I will have you indicted for lèse-majesté.”

It was very quiet. 

“My apologies,” Gunray said then, inclining his head. “I spoke out of turn and deeply regret my words, Your Highness”

He sat down again and Count Dooku spoke up.

“If Neimoidia are done with their histrionics, perhaps we can vote.”

The vote was a landslide. The structure of the task-force leadership, as well as the appointment of key figures, passed. 

Armitage was in a good mood that evening as we were having dinner. 

“Perhaps we should get Gunray to call you a pillow-biter before the next vote,” he said, “and that one will go through too.”

I looked at him. It was mind-blowing how he had managed to construe what Gunray had said as an insult to me and me alone. 

“He meant you too,” I said. 

Armitage busied himself by putting down his glass in the exact same spot from where he had picked it up earlier.

“I know that,” he said.

“But it doesn’t matter, because you’re not gay? Just like you’re not a vegetarian?”

He looked at me. 

“Does it matter?” he asked.

I met his gaze. It did matter. It mattered to me, because now that we weren’t constantly arguing, and we’d had amazing sex again, I found it very difficult to hate him. He was clever, and handsome, and unbelievably sexy. I liked him, but I didn’t want to. Not like that.

“You put him in his place quite brilliantly,” he said. “If you hadn’t, I would obviously had said something.”

“Good to know.”

“We won. And I won’t make any more jokes about pillow-biting, that was in bad taste, I apologize.”

“You realize it’s not quite as offensive coming from you?”

“Yes, well, even so, it was crude.”

This from a guy who’d told me to say I wanted him to come on my face. But it seemed as if there was no connection between the two in his mind. The things he said during sex was separate from everything else, just like the fact that he was having sex with me seemed to be separate from everything else too.

**

The wedding traditions of the Royal family of Hayes Minor differed from those in Arkanis, and Alderaan for that matter. After a luncheon and the ceremony, there was a private dinner for the couple’s closest family and friends in the evening. About 300 people. Armitage and I were included.

I was seated next to Paige. She was good company; I liked her. After the last course had been served all the guests filed into the ballroom. The walls were covered with a great mosaic, in gold and green. Finn jumped up on the stage that had been erected at one end of the room.

“Is this on?” he said into the microphone, to great laughter. “Okay. I won’t hold up the party for long, I just want to say thank you, to my new in-laws, who are hosting us all today and have made this day as fantastic as it has been.”

He bowed slightly to the elderly couple standing nearby the stage, Rose and Paige’s parents. 

“Also, thank you to all of you, who have come here to celebrate with us. It means a lot to share this day with you. And lastly, but definitely not least, to my wonderful wife, Rose.”

Rose beamed up at him. She had changed out of her wedding gown and into a pretty, knee length dress, also white, which made me think of that famous Marilyn Monroe photo, although Rose’s dress was more modest. She looked very pretty. 

“I could not have wished for a smarter, kinder, more beautiful. and tougher woman to spend my life with. Today is the happiest day of my life.”

There was applause and, when he jumped off the stage and kissed her, a few catcalls. 

That had not been for show. That was real. I felt something in my stomach clench and it took me a moment to realize what it was. Envy. 

“Do you think your gorgeous husband will let me have the first dance?” Paige asked. 

I hadn’t seen Armitage since before dinner and I had no idea where he was now.

“Yeah,” I said. 

There were lots of people on the dance floor, but also plenty of space, so it wasn’t too crowded. Paige felt very slender to hold and her hand was light as a feather. Finn and Rose were dancing nearby.

“They do look great together, don’t they?” Paige said. 

“Yes, they do.” I looked at her. “No second thoughts?”

She smiled and shook her head. 

“Rose will make a far better queen than I would. She’s wise.”

Rose seemed smart, but I didn’t know her all too well yet. She was a few years younger than I and I had seen more of Paige, who was the same age as me. And Paige was smart too.

“Besides, if you can’t have the most beautiful, sexiest, coolest guy in the room,” Paige said, “then it’s better not to marry, not until you find someone who can compete.”

I frowned a little. “You wanted Finn?” I said.

“No, stupid. You.”

I felt my jaw drop. 

Paige smiled. “I always knew it was never going to happen,” she said, “even before I knew that you were gay. I used to come up with these elaborate schemes to murder Carise.”

I didn’t know what to say. Paige felt that way about me? 

“Don’t worry,” she said, “I have no plans to get Armitage out of the way. I like him.”

“I didn’t know,” I finally said.

“I know.”

I had kissed her. Once. Years ago. We were, what, twenty, twenty-two? Something like that. At a nightclub. 

“I feel honored,” I said. 

“You should.”

She smiled and I smiled back. 

“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you. I hope we can remain friends.”

“I’m glad you felt you could tell me.”

“I’m gonna find some other Nick Cave fanatic.”

I danced with a few other people, including Rose. She was so small it reminded me of dancing with my mother. Then I found Armitage, by the bar. He was holding a glass of champagne and I grabbed one for myself. 

“This is excellent,” he said, tipping his glass a little from side to side.

I had a taste. “Yeah,” I agreed. 

“I can’t see a bottle, though. I don’t know what brand it is.”

“Do you wanna dance?”

He frowned a little at me. “No. How would that even work? Who leads?”

I didn’t actually know. I’d never done this type of dancing with a man before.

“You can lead,” I said, thinking it was probably what he wanted to hear and maybe I could figure out how to do it all backwards.

“I’d rather not.”

I thought of Finn’s speech. I thought of what Paige had told me. 

“Please,” I said. 

He looked at me. He glanced at the dance floor. 

“Why?” he asked.

“Because we’re married?”

Why was I begging him to dance with me? What difference would that make? 

“Well, alright,” he said, to my surprise.

It felt odd, holding him the opposite way to what I was used to, and I had to focus to take the opposite steps too, and not step on his feet. 

He really was gorgeous. I couldn’t remember ever being so fascinated by anyone’s eyelashes before, but I loved his. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he said.

“Like what?”

“You’re staring.”

“I’m concentrating, I’m doing this backwards.”

After a moment of silence he said:

“You’re doing alright.”

I smiled a little and he smiled back. My heart skipped a beat.

“Do you wanna come on the skiing trip next week?” I asked.

“I don’t ski.”

“No, I know. I just thought, maybe you wanna come anyway?”

“No, thank you. I don’t see the point of hurtling down slopes.”

I smiled. “It’s like sex.”

“I highly doubt that.”

I met his gaze and there was a swooping sensation in my stomach. We were going to fuck tonight. Definitely.

“Mind if we cut in?” 

I tore my gaze away from Armitage’s. It was Finn and Rose.

“Not at all,” Armitage said. 

Rose took hold of him and I ended up with Finn. I had to admire his guts. The scene in the Senate the other day proved that there were still those who would frown at two guys dancing and there was no reason he had to do it. Of course, he had just gotten married and proclaimed his love for the woman in question in front of hundreds of witnesses, so maybe he felt he wasn’t risking too much.

“Oh, man,” he said, “you can follow? I don’t know if I can.”

“I’m figuring it out,” I replied. 

“Enjoying the party?” he asked. 

He was a little weirded out, dancing with me, I could tell, but he was also determined not to be, I could see that as well.

“Yeah. Your in-laws throw a great party.”

He smiled. “They’re going to bed soon and then we can switch to better music.”

I smiled back. 

“Seriously, though, they’re great,” he said.

“Just old.”

“Yeah. But I’ve heard, I don’t know if this is true, I can’t find anyone to confirm it, that there was limbo dancing at their wedding.”

I laughed. “I think my mother might have been there, I can ask her. It would have been kind of retro if you’d had that.”

“Yeah, and I would have beat you at it, cause you’re freakishly tall!”

“Rose would have won.”

“That she would have.”

The King and Queen of Hayes Minor did retire for the night not long after that and then the party lasted until 3 a.m. I fell into bed at the end of it. Armitage and I had been given a very nice room in the castle. 

We hadn’t slept in the same bed since Naboo. I scooted close to him and put my arms around him.

“I’m too tired,” he said. 

“Yeah, me too,” I said. I kissed his shoulder. 

“Then what are you doing? Go lie on your side.”

“I don’t know which side is mine, because we have separate rooms.”

He was quiet for a few seconds.

“Is this your way of saying you want us to share a bedroom?” he said then.

“Maybe.”

There was another few seconds of silence.

“We are married,” I said.

“Yes. Well, I can’t sleep if you’re going to be this clingy, so if we’re going to sleep in the same bed, you’re going to have to stay on your side of it.”

I let go of him and scooted back to the other half of the bed. The rejection stung and I felt angry with myself for bringing it up in the first place. I felt fucking clingy. 

“Are you sulking now?” he said after a moment. 

“No.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No. I just… It would have been nice if you liked me.”

“I do like you.”

Not enough, I thought. Not the way I like you. But wisely, I kept my mouth shut. I boxed the pillow into submission and put my arms around it, getting comfortable. 

“Do you like me?” he asked after a while, behind me.

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s fine then.”

“Yeah, it’s fine.”


End file.
